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OLD 



Saint Augustine 



A Story of Three Centuiaes 



BY 



-A 

CHARLES B; REYNOLDS 



I "dec 2j1E^^/ 

St. Augustine, Florida 

E. H. REYNOLDS 

1SS5 






Copyright, 1884. 

By Chas. B. Reynolds. 

All Rights Reserved, 



Unstable as the ever shifting sands of its harbor bar 
have been the changing fortunes of St. Augustine. To 
tell the story, briefly, clearly and with accuracy of his- 
torical detail, is the endeavor in the following chapters. 

Some of the illustrations are from drawings by old-time 
artists, who were actors here in the scenes of long ago. 
Some have been printed on the camera by the sunlight 
of to-day; they are new pictures, but of such things 
as are old — the massive walls of a decaying fortress, the 
pillars of a crumbling gateway, an ancient cathedral, a 
more ancient palm tree. All are memorials which speak 
of the past, for this is our theme. 

The purpose of the book will be attained, if with its 
aid the reader shall see the St. Augustine of the present 
tinged and illumined with the light of its past. 

St. Augustine, Florida. 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

I. The Spaniard's Mission, - - - ii 

II. The Huguenots in Florida, - - 14 

III. The Coming of Menendez, - - - 20 

IV. Founding a City, ... - 25 
V. Fort Caroline, 29 

VI. Matanza, 34 

VII. French Vengeance, - - - - 43 

VIII. After Twenty Years, - - - 49 

IX. The English Sea-Kings, - - - 51 

X. The Franciscans, .... 62 

XI. The Boucaniers, 69 

XII. British Cannon Balls, ... 75 

XIII. The Minorcans, 83 

XIV. Rangers and Liberty Boys, - - 91 
XV. The Old World in the New, - - 100 

XVI. The Seminole, loS 

XVII. Later Years, 118 

XVIII. Fort Marion, 125 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Page. 



^ Fort Marion, - - - - Frontispiece. 

From the Harbor. 

^ The River OF Dolphins, 15 

After the drawing by Jacques Le Moyne, in his Brevis Nar- 
ration Frankfort, 1591. 

^The Pillar of Stone, 17 

After the drawing by Jacques Le Moyne. 

^FoRT Caroline, 31 

After the drawing by Jacques Le Moyne. 

i Spanish Fort at Matanzas Inlet, - - - 51 

Formerly defending the approach from the south. 

^ Fort Marion, 75 

From the Southwest ; showing glacis, southwest bastion and 
sentry-box, west curtain and east curtain, with sally-port. 

^Plan of British St. Augustine, - - - 91 

After the drawing by T. Jefferys in the "Description of East 
Florida," by Wm. Stork, London, 1769. 

'Ruins of the City Gate, ----- loi 

From the Northwest, showing Fort Marion in the distance. 

^The Old Palm Tree, . . . . . joi 

Showing part of St. Francis street. 

- House on St. George Street, - - - - 105 

From the South. 

- House on Charlotte Street, - - . . 105 

From the South. 

\ Garden Overlooking Plaza, - - - - 121 

Showing Spanish monument. 

' The Cathedral, 121 

From the Plaza. 

^ Fort Marion, 125 

Portion of the west curtain, showing, on left, fig tree growing 
from the wall. 

^ Fort Marion, - 133 

Interior, showing portion of court, entrances to casemates, and 
inclined plane leading to ramparts. 

#*:j,The artotypes are from negatives taken by Mr, W. A. Cox. 



THE TIME AND THE ACTORS. 

For the beginning of the story we must go back over 
three hundred years to the middle of the Sixteenth 
century. 

It was an age of romance, when the caravels of 
Columbus had but just pierced the cloud of mystery 
and gloom shutting out the west, and all Europe was 
ringing with tales of the wondrous new-found realms 
beyond the sunset. It was an age of credulous beliefs 
and magnificent undertakings, when bold-hearted adven- 
turers sailed forth in search of El Dorados and empires 
rich in barbaric treasure. It was the age of Rome's 
temporal dominion, when he who held the Keys of St. 
Peter laid claim to the entire New World, and parceled it 
out among his faithful children. An age of faith, when 
in every happening devout believers recognized the direct 
personal manifestation of a controlling supreme God; of 
intense religious feuds, when difference of creed meant 
enmity the most unrelenting and cruelty the most merci- 
less; of fanaticism, when deluded men, believing them- 
selves chosen instruments of the Most High, mistook the 



X The Time and the Actors. 

instigation of the Devil for the inspiration of God; of 
heroes, when at the hands of such bigots brave men 
knew how to die rather than surrender the faith that was 
dear to them; finally, of a new knight errantry, when, 
indignant at a sovereign's apathy, individuals took 
upon themselves single-handed the task of avenging 
their martyred countrymen. 

These were the times and the actors; and such were 
the motives that we shall find reflected in the opening 
chapters of St. Augustine's strangely chequered history. 



I. 

THE SPANIARD'S MISSION. 




pXiN arrogated to herself exclusive dominion of 
the New World. Its whole vast territory was 
doubly hers, first by right of discovery, and 
then by Papal grant. 

In Mexico and Peru she had abundantly made good 
this claim by the glorious achievements of the Conquista- 
dors; but in Terra Florida each successive attempt at 
conquest had resulted in a failure more disastrous than 
the last. Expedition after expedition, made up of the 
flower of Spanish chivalry, had landed on the shores of 
Florida, and set out with buoyant step upon a triumphal 
march to win the fabled treasures of the interior; and the 
forests had closed behind them. Exhausted by their 
wanderings to and fro, entangled in swamp and hamak, 
harassed by savage foes, faint with famine and stricken 
with fever, one brave band after another had lost courage, 
grown disheartened and turned back. From some a 
handful of straggling survivors had returned to tell the 
tale of woe; others had wasted away until the miserable 
remnant fell into captivity; and still others had perished 



12 Old St. Aug7istine, 

utterly. The history of Spanish endeavor in Florida had 
been a pitiful record of disappointment. Here amid the 
pines and savannas had been proven the truth of the 
ancient belief that the world beyond the sunset was a 
world of misery and death. 

But the dream of glory to be attained in Florida was 
not yet dispelled. Over the land still hung the halo of 
romance; within its mysterious forests treasure and fame 
were yet waiting to reward the hero whose heart should 
be bold to win them; and there was yet one Spaniard, at 
least, who, undismayed by the fate of Narvaez and De 
Soto, would undertake to wipe out the shame of Spanish 
failure in North America, and win for himself a place 
with the heroes of his age. This new name in the story 
of Florida adventure was that of Don Pedro Menendez 
d'Aviles, nobleman, companion of Pizarro, soldier, bigot. 
In 1565 Menendez received from the Spanish sovereign, 
Philip IL, a commission to subdue Florida. 

The enterprise was to be a conquest of territory and 
treasure; and also much more than this, a mission for the 
salvation of souls. The New World was peopled by the 
heathen — lost sheep led away by the Demon; and they 
must be brought back into the fold of the Church. To 
the standard of Menendez, along with mail-clad warrior 
came black-robed priest, with the helmeted knight the 
cowled friar, beside the banner of Castile was borne aloft 
the gilded crucifix, and with pike and arquebuse and 
other munitions of war were provided the accessories of 
the mass. 

Moreover there was need of haste. A most alarming 
report had been brought to Menendez. The soil of 



The Spaniard's Alzssion, 13 

Florida was polluted by the feet of heretics; the land 
promised by the Holy Father to the faithful had been 
invaded by the children of the Arch-Demon. The tres- 
passers must be rooted out and exterminated with fire 
and sword. Upon the instant, the Florida enterprise was 
transformed into a holy war and exalted to a crusade. 
Zealots flocked to take part in the pious undertaking. 
As a century before, in the far East, their ancestors had 
wrested the Holy Sepulchre from the hand of the Infidel, 
so now, in the West, the knights of Biscay and the Astu- 
rias would rescue the New World from the accursed pro- 
fanation of the impious heretics. The ranks of the new 
crusaders were soon filled; and in June Menendez was 
prepared to set forth on his mission. 

Who were these heretics in Florida; and how had they 
come here, in defiance of the proclamations of the King 
of Spain, and in contempt of the anathemas of the Pope 
of Rome? 



II. 
THE HUGUENOTS IN FLORIDA. 



HORTLY after mid-day of the 2 2d of June, 
1564, the people of the Indian village of 
Seloy, on the Florida coast, looking out across 




the bay and marsh and beyond the drifted sand dunes of 
the beach, descried three sails approaching from the 
south. Athwart the bar the strange ships came to anchor; 
and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon two boats put off, and 
rounding the point of the island opposite the town, rowed 
toward the land. In the village all was instant commo- 
tion. The laborers came in from the maize fields; the 
fishermen stranded their dug-outs; and the boys left their 
game of ball-throwing at the wicker target. Here collected 
the warriors, their ear ornaments of inflated fish bladders 
shining in the sun; and there were gathered the women, 
clad in kirtles of woven moss, their bangles of silver and 
gold plates, tinkling as they walked. Then, all came 
trooping down to the shore to welcome the strangers — 
all save the chief, or Paracoussy, who must needs main- 
tain the dignity of his savage royalty, and so held aloof, 
seated in state beneath his palmetto bower. 

The new-comers were hailed with great joy, for the 
Indians recognized them as friends. Their ensigns bore 
the Fleur-de-Lis of France; and their leader, Rene de 







4i'AiAS 



The Huguenots in Floi^ida. 15 

Laudonniere, had been on this same coast two years 
before. At that time the Indians had been treated with 
such kindness that at the departure of the expedition 
they had run along the shore, with cries and lamentations 
bewailing the loss of their new-found friends and entreat- 
ing them to remain. Now, overjoyed at the Frenchmen's 
return, the people of Seloy received Laudonniere with 
the warmest welcome and overwhelmed him with gifts. 
But let him tell it in his own naive way, as translated 
for us in the musty old English text of Hakluyt. "I 
went on land," he writes — 

|)aDmg: tl)U2! £iearcl)eti t[)e EiUer, Sf tuent on lanti to gpeaike 
^\X\i X\t SfnlJtanfi tol^icb toaiteti for us upon X\t s^ore, tol)ic(), 
at our comming: on lanU, came before tis crpini]: \i\\X\ a loutir 
toopce, ixi. X\z\x 3'nKian lanffuacje : Antipola Bonaffou, inM^'b 
ifi as mticf) to sap, as brother, frienti, or some sucl) Ufee 
tl)tncs:, ^iter t|)ep !)ali maUe berp muci) of us, t\tv sjjeraeti tts 
t|)eir Paracouffy, t^at is to sap, t^eir %m% antJ (^o^rmour, 
to tol)om S" presented certaine topes tol)ereii3ttb ^e toas toell 
pleaseti. S(nU, for mj> otone part, 3f prapse (^oti continuallp 
for t()e great lotje to^icf) 3" ^aije founU \\i tl;ese ^autiages, 
to^irl) toere sorrp for notljing: but tl)at tlje ntffljt approcl)eli 
anti matie us retire unto our sf)ips, 

jFor, t|)cug:]^ t^ep enlieaijoureti bp al meanes to maie us 
tarp ^\X\ tl)em, anti sf)etDetJ \^^ signs tlje tiesire t|)at i!s^tv !)ati 
to present us ^x^i^ some rare t|)in5S, pet, nevertheless, for 
manp iust anti reasonable occasions, 3f tooullJ not stap on 
s|)ore all nis;l)t ; but epcusintj mpselfe for all t|)eir offers, 3" 
embarfeeU mpselfe againe, anU returntti tolaarti mp sbips. 
|)otobeit, before mp departure, % name^ tMs Eiuer tlje Eiijer 
of Dolphines, because at mine arriiiall 3 sato t^ere a 
great number of i^olpbines, tol)ic|^ toere plaping va t^e mouti) 
thereof. 



1 6 Old St. Auzttstine. 



s 



So the Frenchmen, laden with gifts of painted deer- 
skins, went back to their ships; and on the following 
morning weighed anchor and sailed away from Seloy. 
We shall hear of this Indian village again. As seen by 
Laudonniere on that June day, three hundred years ago, 
it was a collection of palmetto-thatched huts, surrounded 
by maize fields. In the central square stood the great 
council house, where before setting out for war the chief 
and his counsellors gathered to drink the cassine, that 
black drink of virtue so potent that to quaff it was the 
crucial test of manly valor. Here, too, the assembled war- 
riors waited on the incantation of the sorcerer; and here, 
on their return again, they hung the scalps taken in battle. 
Without the council hall, aloft on its staff was the effigy 
of an antlered stag, looking out over the ocean toward 
the sunrise. For annually, at the coming of spring, the 
people of Seloy selected the skin of a huge deer, stuffed 
it with choicest herbs and decked it wnth fruits and 
flowers; and then bearing it with music and song to the 
appointed spot and setting it up on its lofty perch, 
consecrated it as a new offering to the Sun god, that 
because of it he might smile upon the fields and fructify 
the planted seed and send to his children an abundant 
harvest. 

From Seloy the French sailed north forty miles, until 
they came to a stream^ which on the previous voyage had 
been named the River of May. Here likewise the In- 
dians hailed them with great joy, greeting them while 
yet far off from shore wilh the salutation Antipola! Anti- 
pola! Vv' hen they reached the land, the Paracoussy Sa- 
tourioua with two of his sons, as fair and mighty persons 



The Huguenots in Florida, i 7 

as might be found in all the world, thought the French, 
hastened down to meet them, ''having nothing in their 
mouths but this word — amy, amy, that is to say, friend, 
friend." The first demonstrations of delight over, noth- 
ing would do but that Laudonniere must accompany 
Satourioua to the goodly hill, where a pillar of stone 
bearing the French coat of arms had been erected by 
Ribault, the captain of the first expedition, two years 
before. The monument was found wreathed with gar- 
lands, and about its foot were many little baskets of 
fruit and maize, with quivers full of arrows and other 
tokens of the Indian's veneration. Gathering about the 
mysterious symbol, Satourioua and his people rever- 
ently kissed the shaft; and besought the French to do 
the like; "which we would not deny them," writes Lau- 
donniere, "to the end we might draw them to be more in 
friendship with us." An exchange of presents followed, 
the Paracoussy giving the Captain a wedge of silver, and 
Laudonniere presenting in return a cutting-hook and 
some gilded trinkets; and thus, with expressions of 
mutual good will and tokens of friendship, French and 
Indians renewed the league of perpetual amity and alli- 
ance made with Ribault. 

After more coasting and exploration, a site was finally 
selected, and a hymn of thanksgiving having been sung, 
and a prayer made for divine protection, "after which 
every man began to take courage," soldiers and sailors 
set about the building of a fort. The Indians joyfully 
assisted in the work, and with their aid the structure was 
soon completed. Jacques Le Moyne, the artist, who 
came out with the expedition, has pictured the fort for 



1 8 Old St. A^igustine. 

us, a triangular structure of logs, which, in honor of the 
young French King, Charles IX., they named Fort 
Caroline. 

Laudonniere and his companions were French Protest- 
ants, Huguenots, Lutherans — in a word, heretics. They 
had come to establish here in Florida a Protestant colony, 
which should provide an asylum and harbor of refuge 
from the persecutions that threatened to overwhelm the 
New Religion in their native France. 

When Fort Caroline was completed, the ships were sent 
home for reinforcements. Weeks and months passed by, 
but they did not come again. The French at the River 
of May occupied themselves in strengthening the fortifi- 
cations, and led on by the delusive stories of distant gold 
mines, spent much time and endured many hardships in 
fruitless quest of the precious metal. They fell into disas- 
trous conflicts with the Indians. Sickness came. Laudon- 
niere was worn out with nervous excitement and pros- 
trated by a fever. The provisions were exhausted. 
Famine followed. Then mutiny. At length, despairing 
of succor, the wretched colonists built a crazy craft, 
abandoned New France and were putting to sea, when 
along came John Hawkins, on his way home from a slave 
trading expedition. English sea-king and Spaniard-hater, 
the bluff admiral very gladly fitted out the Frenchmen 
with supplies of food; and left them one of his ships. 
They made all haste to embark, and were awaiting a 
favorable wind to bear them away from Florida. But 
they did not sail. For on the 29th day of August (1565) 
seven ships arrived off the bar of the River of May. 
They were from France. Admiral Jean Ribault was in 



The Huguenots hi Flo7'ida. 



19 



command, and with him were 300 colonists. The rein- 
forcements had come at last. All was bright once more at 
Fort Caroline; and never were pioneers in a new land 
more buoyant with hope than were these Huguenots on 
the banks of the River of May, as they now set about 
in earnest the establishment of Protestant New France. 

These were the French heretics in Florida, whom 
Menendez was commissioned to destroy, root and branch, 
from the soil given by the Pope to the Spaniard. 




III. 
THE COMING OF MENENDEZ. 




N San Pedro's Day, June 29th, 1565, with royal 
commission and Papal blessing, Menendez set 
sail from Cadiz. He commanded a fleet of thirty- 
four vessels and a company of 2,600 men, knights of Bis- 
cay and the Asturias, soldiers, seamen, Franciscans, 
Jesuits and negro slaves. 

In mid-ocean the ships were overtaken and scattered 
by a furious tempest; but the expedition, bent on a holy 
mission, was under divine protection. So reasoned Men- 
endez, and his courage did not falter. Again and again 
during the voyage, signal manifestations of the heavenly 
approval were granted them. Once, overcome by terror in 
the storm, the pilots lost their reckoning and knew not 
which way to steer, but divine guidance led them to their 
course again. When they were becalmed, writes Fran- 
cisco Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, chaplain of the expe- 
dition, God in answer to their prayers sent them speedy 
winds again; and Providence ordained that they should 
come to dangerous shoals in the daytime, that so being 
aware of their peril they might pass in safety. Again, in 



The Coming of Menendez. k|. 21 

the Bahama Channel the Admiral's galleon, the San 
Falayo^ struck upon a reef, the waters rushed into the 
hold, the sailors gave themselves up for lost, and the ship 
must surely have perished, had not the Holy Mother in 
quick response to their supplications sent two heavy 
waves, which lifted the San Falayo and bore her safely 
off into deep water again. Yet once more came a token 
from above. The fleet lay idly drifting on a glassy sea, 
the captains grew disheartened and the crews began loudly 
to murmur, when, writes Mendoza, "God showed us a 
miracle from on high;" for in the night a great meteor 
blazed out in mid-heaven, and sweeping on before them, 
its brightness lasting while one might repeat two Credos^ 
sank toward the west, where lay the land of Florida. 

Thus borne on by heaven-sent winds and led by celes- 
tial lights, at length, on the 29th of August, the day in 
the Spanish calendar sacred to San Augustin, the Span- 
iards came in sight of the coast; and at the first welcome 
glimpse of land, soldiers and sailors, led by the priests, 
chanted together a Te JDeum of praise and thanksgiving. 

But if the crews rejoiced, how much greater must have 
been the satisfaction of their commander, when from the 
high deck of the San Falayo he first beheld the shadowy 
outline of his kingdom; and how must his heart have 
swelled with anticipation as fancy painted the glorious 
conquests in store for him. Here at last is Terra Florida^ 
the Florida of the sixteenth century, which means the 
whole vast continent from Mexico to the boundless north, 
and from the Atlantic westward to the back of the world 
— who knows just where? Before him lies the empire 
which he is to claim as his own, for of Florida (so reads 



2 2 .,. Old St. Augustine. 

the royal commission) he is to be Adelantado for life. 
Here, in this magnificent theatre of the New World, will he 
achieve a conquest that shall outshine the most glorious 
exploits of the Conquistadors, and forever join his name 
with theirs. As Vasco Nunez de Balboa, advancing 
into the waters of the Great South Sea, made valiant 
boast, swearing on his sword, to hold against all comers 
that mighty ocean for his sovereign Don Ferdinand, 
so will he, Pedro Menendez d'Aviles, undertake to de- 
fend against the world this unexplored and illimitable 
continent for his Most Catholic Majesty Don Philip II. 
As Francisco Pizarro has made his name immortal by 
wresting the plates of gold from the Temple of the Sun, 
and rifling the treasure from the tombs of the Incas, in 
the great and holy city of Cuzco with its hundred thou- 
sand houses, so will he, Pedro Menendez, sack the wealth 
of Chigoula, the wonderful city hidden somewhere here 
in Florida, ''whose inhabitants [ran the story of Indian 
captives taken to Spain] make none account of gold and 
silver and pearls, seeing they have thereof in abundance." 
As Hernando Cortez has sent the fleets back to Spain 
laden with bars of precious metals from the mines of the 
Montezumas, so now will he dispatch the galleons from 
Florida, and send them home freighted with treasure 
untold from the crystal mountains of Apalatcy, those 
wondrous peaks, whose summits ''shine so bright in the 
day that they cannot behold them and so travel unto them, 
by night." Nay, besides the rivers of golden sands, the 
stores of "Christal, golde and Rubies and Diamonds," the 
mines and the pearl fisheries, and cities and mountains of 
wealth, beyond these and more wonderful than them all. 



The Coming of Menendez. 23 

is the magic fountain into whose waters he, Pedro Menen- 
dez, may yet plunge and — why not? — Hve forever, Adelan- 
tado of a continent. Such is the magnificent dream that 
rises before the Admiral of the Spanish fleet as the ships 
draw near the Florida coast. But first and now, the 
darker mission; before the search for fame and treasure, 
the hunt for the heretics. 

The fleet sailed north along the coast, and not long 
after, late one afternoon, the Spanish lookout descried the 
French ships lying at anchor off the River of May. At 
eleven o'clock that night, Tuesday, September 4th, the 
San Palayo and her consorts came to anchor within hail 
of Ribault's flagship, the Trinity. The Spaniards worked 
noiselessly and the French looked on without speaking. 
"Such a silence," says Mendoza, "I never knew since I 
came into the world." At last a trumpet sounded from 
the deck of the San Palayo. From the Trinity came an 
answering salute. Then with much courtesy Menendez 
inquired, ''Gentlemen, whence comes this fleet?" 

"From France," was the response. 

"What is it doing here?" 

"Bringing infantry, artillery and supplies for a fort which 
the King of France has in this country, and for many 
more which he will build." 

"And you, are you Catholics or Lutherans?" 

Many of the French at once cried out, "We are Luth- 
erans, of the New Religion." Then they asked who he 
was and whence he came. Through the gloom they 
heard the answer: 

"Pedro Menendez is he whom you question, the 
Admiral of these ships, the fleet of the King of Spain, 



24 Old St, Augustine. 

Don Philip II., which comes to this country to fall upon 
and behead all Lutherans who are upon its shores, and 
those who are on the seas. The instructions I hold from 
my King, and which are so explicit that they leave me 
no latitude nor authority to pardon you, I shall execute 
in full. Immediately after the break of day, I shall board 
your ships. If I find there any Catholics they shall be 
spared; but all who are heretics shall die." 

Here the French interrupted him and with jeers and 
derisive taunts called out to him not to wait until the 
morning but to board their ships at once; whereupon the 
Spanish Admiral, provoked to great fury, gave the com- 
mand to arms, ordered the cables cut and in his wrath 
sprung down to the deck to hasten w^ith his own hands 
the execution of the order. With all expedition the San 
Palayo bore down on the Trinity^ but the Frenchmen too 
had cut their cables, and putting straight out to sea soon 
eluded their pursuers. "These crazy devils are such good 
sailors," records Mendoza, ''and manoeuvered so well that 
we could not capture a single one of them." At break of 
day the Spaniards gave over the chase and returned to 
the River of May. Here they found the French from 
Fort Caroline drawn up on the shore to receive them; and 
not risking an attack they sailed to the southward. 

That night, it being the eve of the nativity of Our Lady 
of September, the larger ships of the Spanish fleet lay off 
the bar of the River of Dolphins; and the smaller ones, 
entering the harbor, came to anchor before the village of 
Seloy. 




IV. 

FOUNDING A CITY. 

ATURDAY, September 8th, witnessed a mem- 
orable scene at the River of Dolphins. In the 
morning, the first beams of the sun, rising from 
the sea, shone upon the antlered front of the consecrated 
stag, in the heathen village of Seloy; at night its last rays 
from the pine forests of the west illumined a cross, stand- 
ing amid the sentried fortifications of the Christian town 
of San Augustin. 

Long before dawn, the crews had begun the labor of 
disembarking. The seamen landed artillery and stores; 
the infantry took possession of the great council house 
of Seloy; the negro slaves fell to the task of throwing up 
earthworks about it; and the priests having set up a 
cross, erected an altar and provided the sacred utensils of 
the mass. 

At noon, clad in the uniform of his knightly • order, 
hose and doublet, slashed sleeves, and the cross of Sant- 
iago on the breast, burnished casque and waving plume, 
Menendez left the San Palayo; and amid fanfare of trum- 
pet, roll of drum and salvos of artillery was rowed in 



26 Old St. Augustine. 

state to the shore. Arrived there, a procession was 
formed. At the head walked chaplain Mendoza, bear- 
ing aloft the crucifix. Then came Menendez, drawn 
sword in one hand and royal commission in the other. 
After him marched the priests, and behind them, their 
armor glistening in the sunlight, followed the companies 
of infantry. Over them flaunted the great yellow banner 
of Spain. Chanting they marched to the majestic meas- 
ures of the Te Deum Laudamus. When they reached the 
altar, Menendez knelt and reverently kissed the crucifix; 
and the others followed his example. Then all gathered 
about the altar for the solemn ceremonies of the mass. 

It was a motley throng — the priests robed in the stole 
and chasuble of their sacred office, the warriors clad in 
suits of mail, the naked negroes toiling in the trenches: 
and pressing in a circle without, the bewildered Indians, 
mute in their wonder and vaguely imitating the mysteri- 
ous actions of the strangers. It was a group in which 
were many contrasts most sharply defined. Here stood 
the Spanish Adelantado, representative of the proudest 
nation upon the globe, now come hither to subdue a con- 
tinent; and a little apart from him was the Indian Para- 
coussy, whose petty reign should from that hour cease. 
Here crowded the conquistadors, eager for spoils; and 
there bent the negro toilers, precursors of the tens of 
thousands of their unhappy race who should follow them 
to slavery in America. Contrast most strange of all — 
this celebration of Christian rites, while the heathen deer 
high on his staff stolidly faced the east. 

The mass being ended, Menendez took formal posses- 
sion of Florida in the name of Philip II., and in honor 



Founding a City, 27 

of the saint upon whose day the fleet had sighted the 
Florida coast, he named the new town San Augustin. 
Then having read aloud his commission, he took from 
officers and men a renewal of their oaths of allegiance, 
and was saluted by all present as Adelantado of Florida. 
Soldiers and sailors sent up a cheer; the artillery shook 
the earth with a salute; the ships in the bay responded 
with their thunder; and booming over the water came 
the answering echoes from the great guns of the San 
Palayo far out beyond the bar. 

So passed the natal day of San Augustin, the new 
Christian town planted on the site of the pagan Indian 
village. The sun sank behind the rim of pines in the 
west; the glory of gold and crimson and purple faded 
out from sky and sea; the birds hushed their songs; the 
gloom of night drew on apace; and from the sea came 
the monody of the surf rolling in on the shore. 

The sunlight has faded from our story. There is no 
more of glitter. The pageantry is over. The ceremo- 
nies of the town's establishment are not yet completed. 
Other rites are to follow, but they will be sombre 
and pitiless. The ancient Picts bathed the foundation- 
stones in human blood, that their structures might long 
endure. Some such terrible baptism must be provided for 
San Augustin, if this planting of Spanish dominion in 
North America is to be made more secure than the futile 
attempts of other Spaniards here in Florida. Victims for 
the human sacrifice are not wanting. Yonder at Fort 
Caroline are the heretics, Lutherans, apostate followers 
of a renegade German monk, and trespassers on this 
domain of the Spanish monarch, who for the honor of 



28 



Old St. Augustiiie, 



Adelantado, Church and King, must be rooted out with 
fire and the sword. So reasons the Spaniard; and Pedro 
Menendez will not fail to put into execution what his 
cruel heart contemplates, for his soul is full to the brim 
of fiercest hate, and his arm is nerved by the most 
powerful of all motives in this year of grace, 1565, the 
unreasoning determination of a religious bigot. . 




CO"" 




FORT CAROLINE. 

ONDAY, September lo, as Menendez was re- 
turning from the Sa7i Falayo, which was to sail 
that night for Spain, the breeze died out with 
the sunset, and the Adelantado lay all night becalmed off 
the bar of San Augustin. In the dim gray of the coming 
dawn, his shallop still at anchor, Menendez and his com- 
panions were terrified by the apparition of the Trinity 
driftmg down upon them with the tide. Not a breath of 
air was stirring; no human agency could save them; 
destruction was imminent. In their extremity the trem- 
bling crew fell upon the deck in supplication of Our Lady 
of Utrera. Behold a miracle! "Straightway," writes Men- 
doza, "one would say that Our Lady herself came down 
upon the ship." A sudden flaw of wind struck the idle 
sail, and lifting the shallop bore it on the crest of a wave 
over the bar. There it was safe, for the French ships 
could not follow. They waited outside for the rising of 
the tide. 

Ribault was in command of the French fleet, and with 
him was the entire fighting contingent from Fort Caroline. 



30 Old St. Augustine , 

They had come for an attack, before the Spaniards had 
intrenched themselves. The Adelantado was ill prepared 
for this unexpected coming of the enemy, but his courage 
was not shaken. The enterprise, undertaken for the glory 
of God and the Church, was not thus to fall into the 
hands of the Arch-Demon. Again the Spaniards prayed. 
Behold another miracle! The very elements of heaven 
were marshalled to their deliverance. On a sudden, while 
the sky was yet clear, the sun shining bright and the sea 
calm, out of the northeast came a blast of wind. It 
sprung at once to a gale, increased in fury and gathered 
the might of a hurricane. Such a tempest, the Indians 
said, had never been known on the coast before. The 
rain beat dcwn in blinding floods. The sea was lashed 
to fury. The French ships struggled and labored in the 
storm, striving in vain to gain an offing; the waves 
rising to the maintopmasts threatened to engulf them. 
Finally the Spaniards saw them driving helplessly to the 
southward. Then they disappeared in the gloom of the 
storm. In such a sea, on the Florida co?st, the heretics 
must perish. The Spaniards were saved. Thus had 
Providence interposed once agan to avert their destruc- 
tion; ''so, "writes the pious Mendoza, "God and the Holy 
Virgin have performed another great miracle in our 
behalf;" and soldiers and priests joined in a service of 
thanksgiving. 

Heaven had destroyed the ships. Now to fall upon 
the rest of the French at Fort Caroline. A mass was 
said. Menendez selected 500 arquebusiers and pikemeii, 
gave the command to march, and himself led the way. 
For four days, led by Indian guides, they threaded the 



Fort Caroline, 31 

mazes of the pines, waded the swamps and hewed their 
way through scrub and hamak. Day after day, night 
after night, the never-ceasing floods of rain poured down 
upon them. At 10 o'clock of the fourth night, drenched, 
bruised, exhausted with fatigue and privation, they 
reached the River of May, and on a bluff overlooking Fort 
Caroline threw themselves down to await the dawn. 

How was it within the fort? Ribault had left no 
defenders. Laudonniere lay in bed sick with a fever. 
The garrison w^as a beggarly assemblage of incapables. 
There were Challeux the carpenter, old and helpless; Le 
Moyne the artist, who could wield a pencil but not a pike; 
the boys who kept Ribault's dogs; and lackeys, women 
and children. The pitiful few who could bear arms at all 
were worn out by their protracted guard duty during the 
four days and nights of continuous tempest. Through 
the weary hours of this night, as before, the tired sentinels 
paced the ramparts in the storm; but, "when the day 
was therefore come," says the chronicle, "and the captain 
of the guard saw that it ramed worse than it did before, 
he pitied the sentinels all too moyled and wet, and think- 
ing that the Spaniards would not have come in such a 
strange time, he let them depart and went to his lodging." 
Little did he know the determined will of the Adelantado, 
Don Pedro Menendez d'Aviles; little did he dream that at 
the very moment his compassion sent the exhausted sen- 
tinels to their quarters, 500 p kemen were concealed 
among the pines on the bluff, within trumpet call, waiting 
like savage beasts to spring upon their prey. 

Morning came, the morning of San Mateo's Day. Men- 
endez had spent the night in vigils and prayer. With the 



32 Old St. Augustine, 

first streak of light he marshalled his command. The 
signal was given for the attack. Breaking into a run and 
raising their battle cry, Santiago! the Spaniards rushed 
upon the fort. 

"Victory! God is with us!" shouted Menendez. "Upon 
them!" 

Laudonniere's trumpeter first saw the Spaniards; and 
gave the alarm. Too late. In through the postern of the 
gate poured the Spaniards. Out of bed leaped the 
French. Undressed, unarmed, out they came, old and 
young, well and sick, men, women and cWldren, dazed, 
bewildered, panic-stricken, pell-mell, headlong on to the 
Spanish pikes. Back through the tents and barracks they 
fled again. Close upon them followed the furious Span- 
iards. Some of the French in terror threw themselves 
over the walls and escaped. Some were spared — to be 
hung, if we credit the French account; to be given over 
to the Inquisition, if we accept the Spanish version. The 
rest were cut down, stabbed, butchered. The assault 
was not more impetuous than the end swift. A trumpet 
sounded the victory. The standard of Spain floated over 
Fort Caroline. 

Among those who escaped wxre Le Moyne, Challeux 
and Laudonniere. The fugitives made their way toward 
the mouth of the River of May, where lay two small ships, 
left by Ribault. In the marsh, the water up to his chin, 
Laudonniere stood all night long, praying aloud. There 
in the morning a boat's crew found him helpless, without 
strength to move even a finger; and lifting him in, 
they bore him to the ships. After much disaster and 
suffering, surviving hunger, thirst and shipwreck, the 



Fort Caroline, 



ZZ 



refugees reached France. Each of the three named sub- 
sequently published accounts of their Florida misfortunes; 
and Le Moyne prepared from memory a series of illus- 
trations of the French expedition in Florida. 

Menendez made thorough work at Fort Caroline. In 
Laudonniere's quarters were discovered certain gilt-bound 
books, out of which the heretic Lutheran priests were ac- 
customed to pre'ach their impious doctrines; and these 
accursed volumes were at once consigned to the flames. 
If we accept the statement of chaplain Mendoza, a great 
Lutheran cosmographer and magician was found among 
the dead. The names of fort and river were changed to 
San Mateo, in honor of the Saint upon whose day this 
great triumph had been achieved. Having thus perfected 
the work of blotting out the heretics, and leaving in Fort 
San Mateo a garrison of 300 men, the Adelantado set out 
on his return to San Augustin. A messenger was sent on 
ahead to announce the joyful tidings; and the priests 
went out to meet the victors. A triumphal procession 
was formed, Mendoza, in new cassock and surplice, bear- 
ing the crucifix at its head; and chanting the Te Deum^ 
the victorious band entered San Augustin at the vesper 
hour. 

The mass of thanksgiving for the signal victory over 
the Arch-Demon was hardly finished, when Menendez 
was called to go forth on a mission yet darker than that 
of Fort Caroline. 



VI. 
MATANZA. 




HE river, or sound, named by the French the 
River of Dolphins and by the Spaniards San 
Augustin, runs parallel with the ocean, from 
which it is separated by a narrow strip of land, to a point 
thirteen miles south, where by another inlet it is again 
connected with the sea. To follow the beach, coming 
from the south, one must cross this lower inlet, and pro- 
ceed along the shore of the island formed by river and 
sea. 

On the day following his return from Fort Caroline, 
while Menendez, worn out with fatigue, was taking his 
siesta^ an Indian runner brought word that a company of 
men had been discovered on the beach at the lower inlet, 
which they could not cross. The Adelantado awoke to 
immediate action. At the head of a chosen band of fifty 
picked soldiers, he left San Augustin at dusk, crossed 
over to the island, marched south along the coast, and 
reached the northern shore of the inlet before dawn. 
From his lookout in a tree, with the first faint light of 
San Miguel's Day, Menendez descried the company on 



Matanza, 



35 



the southern shore. Their number was large; and he 
well knew who they were. 

When day had fully come, the Spanish commander 




manoeuvered his men among the sand hills, so that to 
those on the other side his force of fifty might appear to 
be many more. After these demonstrations he patiently 
waited. One of the strangers plunged into the water 



6 Old St, Augustine. 



from the opposite shore and swam across the inlet. He 
was a Frenchman. His companions, he said, had been 
shipwrecked. The conversation that followed recalls the 
parley between the San Palayo and the Trinity at the 
River of May. 

''What Frenchmen are they?" asked the Adelantado. 

"Two hundred of the command of Jean Ribault, Ad- 
miral and Captain-General of this country for the King of 
France," was the reply. 

"Catholics or Lutherans ?" 

"All Lutherans of the New Religion." His captain^ 
he added, had sent him over to ask who they were. 

"Tell him, then," was the ominous reply, "that it is the 
Viceroy and Adelantado of this land for the King Don 
Philip; and that his name is Pedro Menendez." 

The Frenchman swam back to his comrades. By and 
by he came again and said that his captain wished to treat 
with the Spaniards. Menendez sent them a canoe. The 
captain and ten others came over. They begged Menen- 
dez to furnish them boat^, in which they might proceed 
to a fort, which they had to the north. 

"Are you Catholics or Lutherans ?" asked Menendez. 

"We are all of the New Religion." 

Then said the Adelantado : "Gentlemen, your fort 
is taken and its garrison destroyed;" and he showed 
them some of the spoils from Fort Caroline and two of 
its garrison, who having declared themselves Catholics 
had been spared alive. 

Then the French captain asked for ships to take his 
company to France. The Spaniard replied that he had 
no ships for such a purpose. France and Spain were not 



Matanza. 3 7 

at war, urged the Frenchman; their Kings were friends 
and brothers; would the Adelantado not graciously per- 
mit these shipwrecked men to remain at his fort, until 
they could obtain passage to France. If Catholics and 
friends, replied the Spaniard, yes; but since they were of 
the New Sect, he could regard them only as enemies. 
He should wage war upon them even to blood and fire, 
and should pursue them with all cruelty, wherever he 
might encounter them in this land, to which he had come 
to plant the Holy Faith for the salvation of the Indians. 
If they were willing to surrender their standards, give up 
their arms, and submit themselves to his mercy, well and 
g^ood; *'he should do with them as God might give him 
^race." 

The French captain went back and consulted with his 
men. He came again, this time with another plea. 
Many of his comrades were noblemen of high birth; they 
offered a ransom of 50,000 ducats for their lives. No, 
the Spaniard replied, although a poor man, he was not 
mercenary; and if in the end he should treat them with 
leniency, he would wish to be free from suspicion of a 
sordid motive for doing so. Again the Frenchman 
came over, with the proffer of a still larger ransom. "Do 
not deceive yourselves," answered Menendez; "though 
heaven should come down to earth, I would not do other 
than I have said." 

The parley was ended. The French castaways, ex- 
hausted by their long buffetings with the waves, worn 
out by the hard march through the wilderness, bedrag- 
gled, famished and utterly disheartened; too weak to 
light, too weak to retreat, threw themselves upon the 



38 Old St. Augustine. 

mercy of the Spaniard, and committed themselves to him, 
to do with them ^'as God should give him grace." 

A boat was sent across the inlet, and returned with the 
standards and arms. Then it brought over the captain 
and eight of his men. They were supplied with food 
and drmk and conducted behind the sand dunes out of 
the sight of their comrades on the other shore. "Gen- 
tlemen,'' said Menendez, "my men are few and you are 
many; it would be easy for you to avenge upon us the 
deaths of your friends at the fort. You must, then, 
march with your hands bound behind you, to my camp, 
four leagues hence." To this they assented. The sol- 
diers took the match-cords from their arquebuses; and 
the arms of the French were securely bound behind their 
backs. The others came over ten at a time, and the men 
of each company, on their arrival, were bound in like 
manner. In all there were two hundred and eight of them. 

Then the chaplain, Mendoza, interposed. It was the 
final opportunity. If any were Catholics, let them sig- 
nify it. Eight sailors so declared themselves, and were 
placed apart. "We are all of the New Sect," said the 
rest; "this is our faith; we have no other." 

The sun was low in the west. There was need of expedi- 
tion in the terrible work now to be done. Menendez gave 
the command to march. Divided into squads of ten, their 
arms tied behind, a guard in front of them and another in 
their rear, the wretched victims were driven to the sham- 
bles. Leaving his secret instructions with the soldiers, 
Menendez went on in advance. At a certain point, 
before determined, he drew with his lance a mark in the 
sand. When the first band of ten Frenchmen came to 



Matanza. 39 

this mark, the vanguard turned upon the leading rank of 
prisoners and stabbed, each his man; and the rear guard 
stabbed from behind, each his victim, those in the second 
rank. When the second squad of ten came to the fatal 
mark they were struck down in the same way; then the 
third, and the fourth, and those that came after; and so 
the horrible matanza — the well-planned, systematic butch- 
ery, where each one struck his appointed blow — was con- 
tinued so long as the light shone, and went on, after the 
setting of the sun, into the night, until at length the deed 
of blackest darkness was finished in darkness. 

When the last heretic had been stabbed in the back, 
the Spaniards returned a second time in triumph to San 
Augustin. 

And here this dark chapter should end; but the story 
is not yet finished. What follows is a repetition almost in 
detail of that which has been told. Let us hasten over it. 

Upon the following day the Indians came again to San 
Augustin. Another company had been discovered on 
the beach at the inlet. With 150 men the tireless Span- 
iard again set forth. Another night march, another impa- 
tient waiting for the dawn, another manoeuver of the 
troops; and again a messenger swam across the inlet. 
His company, he said, was that of Admiral Jean Ribault; 
and after the story of their shipwreck, came the request 
for boats to take them to Fort Caroline. Then the 
Frenchman inquired whom he was addressing. ''Pedro 
Menendez," was the answer; and the messenger was sent 
back with the news of the capture of Fort Caroline. 

A canoe having been sent for him, Jean Ribault him- 



40 Old St. AtcgMstine, 

self came over with eight of his officers. The Spanish 
Adelantado received the French Admiral with punctilious 
courtesy, and set a collation before him. Having con- 
vinced Ribault of the death of those who had been left 
at Fort Caroline, Menendez led him to the horrible spot 
where the flocks of unclean birds were gathered, and 
showed him by the ghastly evidence there what fate had 
overtaken the first band of castaways two days before. 

Again came the ineffectual plea for clemency. What 
had happened to himself, said Ribault, might have be- 
fallen Menendez; their Kings were brothers and friends, 
so as a friend should the Adelantado act toward him. 
Menendez was unmoved. Then the French offered ran- 
som; and it was refused. The interviews concluded as 
before; the Spaniard's final answer was that "the French 
might surrender themselves to his mercy, and he should 
do with them as God might direct." 

That night 200 of the French withdrew and marched 
south into the wilderness; any fate, even to be devoured 
by the savages, was preferable to that of falling into the 
hands of the Spaniard.* The next morning Menendez 
sent a boat across the inlet, and Ribault came over, bring- 
ing his standards, arms and commission; and surrendered 
them to Menendez. The Adelantado conducted him 
behind a sand hill and repeated the treacherous pretext 
he had used before. Night was approaching, he said; 
his fort was distant; they had far to go; his men were 
few; the French were many; they must be bound. The 
Admiral submitted. 



* They subsequently surrendered, and most of them found their way back tc 
France. 



Matanza. 4 1 

Once more, across this Stygian flood, the ferry boat of 
death with Charon at the oar began its passing. Back 
and forth, from shore to shore, it fared, bringing the vic- 
tims ten at a time, until the one hundred and fifty had 
been ferried over. As each company of ten arrived, they 
were conducted behind the sand hills; and their arms 
were pinioned. • "When all were tied," writes the Spanish 
priest, Don Solis las Meras, brother-in-law of Menendez, 
and present at this scene, "when all were tied, the Adelan- 
tado asked if they were Catholics or Lutherans, or if any 
wished to make confession. Jean Ribault answered that 
all there were of the New Religion; and then he began to 
repeat the psalm Domine^ fnemento met; having finished 
which, he said that from dust they came and to dust they 
must return again; and that in twenty years, more or 
less, he must render his final account;" and now the Ade- 
lantado might do with him as he saw fit. This man, Jean 
Ribault, who spoke thus, we may be sure, walked erect 
and with an unflinching step to his fate. 

Four who declared themselves Catholics were placed 
on one side, and with them the drummers and fifers, one 
of whom, Nicolas Burgoigne, we shall hear of again. 
Then, as in the Florida pines to-day one may see the 
horsemen forcing the cattle into the slaughter pens, the 
Spaniards drove their wretched victims on to their doom. 
On the same sandy reach, still red with its sanguinary 
dye, Menendez drew for this new band of martyrs another 
mark on the ground. When Ribault and his comrades 
reached this fatal bound, the horrible scene of that other 
day was re-enacted; and with each succeeding band the 
matanza was repeated; the butchers struck and the vie- 



42 Old St. Augustine, 

tims fell. And when all had been slain, the Spaniards 
marched on, and returned once more in triumph. 

Thus at the founding of San Augustin was thrice pro- 
vided a human sacrifice, and a libation poured out so 
copious, that were there virtue in the old pagan rites the 
walls of this Spanish city in Florida must endure for all 
time. 




VII. 

FRENCH VENGEANCE. 

HE time is three years later. The scene is 
changed to San Mateo. Enter, for the last 
stormy act in this lurid drama, the Chevalier 
Dominique de Gourgues, French Catholic, soldier of for- 
tune, sometime since Spanish galley slave; now come to 
repair the outraged honor of his native land and to 
avenge the death of his countrymen. He has sold his 
estates that he may fit out an expedition, has gathered a 
picked company of soldiers and seamen, and sailed out 
of France with a commission to kidnap slaves on the 
coast of Africa. Once at sea, he has undeceived his 
companions; the enterprise, he tells them, is not to steal 
negroes; it is a mission of vengeance. He rehearses the 
atrocious cruelties cf the Spaniards, with the terrible fate 
of the Huguenots in Florida, and details his scheme of 
retaliation — will they follow him ? The answer is a 
cheer. 

When the three ships come in sight of the forts at San 
Augustin and San Mateo, the Spaniards, taking them for 
friends, fire salutes of welcome. The Frenchman responds, 



44 ^^'^ ^i' Atcgttstine. 

and sails on. Entering a river beyond, he finds the banks 
Hned with a hostile array of Indians, drawn up under the 
Paracoussy Satourioua, and prepared for battle. A trum- 
peter, on3 of the fugitives who had escaped from Fort Caro- 
line, is sent ashore. The Indians recognize him. The 
ships, they learn, are French, not Spanish. The trumpeter's 
message is heard with joy; and immediately savage hos- 
tility is changed to eager welcome. Later, when De 
Gourgues comes achore and begins to declare his purpose 
of revenge, Satourioua impatiently interrupts him with 
the story of the wrongs which his own peop'e have en- 
dured at the hands of the Spaniards. Well have the 
Paracoussy and his tribe kept the pledge made to Lau- 
donniere that his friends should be their friends and h's 
enemies their enemies; and many an incautious Spaniard 
at San Mateo and San Augustin has been ambushed and 
slain by the unseen Indian foe. 

The French landed their equipments, and made prepara- 
tions for attacking the forts; and meanwhile their savage 
allies performed the ceremonies which were always observed 
before the Florida Indian went into battle. The black 
drink was mixed; and nothing would do but that De 
Gourgues must quaff a heroic draught. The painted 
sorcerer with painful contortions and grimaces of suffer- 
ing fell into his mystic trance, and from the vision brought 
information of the strength and disposition of the enemy. 
The chiefs, decked out in totems and forbidding in war 
paint, gathered in a circle, squatting on the ground; and 
in the center uprose Satourioua. On his right stood a 
vessel of water, on his left burned a fire. Taking a shal- 
low dishful of the water in his right hand and holding it 



French Vengeance, 45 

aloft toward the sun, the chief prayed to that luminary 
that a victory might be granted them over the Spaniards; 
and dashing the water to the ground, implored that so 
might the blood of the enemy be poured out. Then lift- 
ing up the great vessel of water he emptied it out upon 
the fire, exclaiming, "So also may you extinguish the lives 
of your foes." And all the rest responded with shouts and 
cries of hate and rage. 

Again De Gourgues inflamed the hearts of his follow- 
ers by a fresh recital of the wrongs they had come tc 
avenge; and then Frenchmen and Indians took up their 
march. 

The Spaniards, four hundred strong, were intrenched 
in two small forts near the mouth of the Rio de San Mateo 
and in Fort San Mateo (formerly Fort Caroline), which 
had been so strengthened and equipped that the Span- 
iards boasted the half of France could not take it. The 
avengers sought first the smaller forts. Making their way 
as best they could through the swamps, across the treach- 
erous ooze of marshes and over the cruel oyster beds con- 
cealed beneath the water, from which they emerged with 
lacerated feet and bleeding limbs, they came at length to 
the first fort and prepared for the attack. 

"To arms ! The French !" cried a sentinel; and from 
the fort, upon the advancing column, came a cannon ball 
from the muzzle of one of Laudonniere's own cannon. At 
this, Olotacara, an impetuous savage, bounded from his 
place in the ranks, leaped upon the platform, scaled the 
rampart and ran the gunner through with his pike. 
French and Indians followed with a rush. It was soon 
over. The fort was taken. By command of De 



46 Old St. Augustine, 

Gourgues fifteen of the Spaniards were reserved; of the 
rest not one escaped. 

Panic-stricken at the capture of the first fort, the garri- 
son of the other one, across the river, rushed out for 
flight into the forest. Hemmed in by the infuriat:d sav- 
ages on one side, and on the other by the French, there was 
no escape. As before, fifteen were reserved; and of the 
others, the historian of the expedition records, "all there 
ended their days." 

Then on to Fort San Mateo. Here the garrison, hav- 
ing been alarmed, were in readiness for them; and "no 
sluggards of their cannon shot," played their ordnance 
upon the French so incontinently that their courage 
failed; and retreating to the shelter of the woods, they 
took up their position on that very bluff where three years 
before Menendez had concealed his pikemen. Here, 
since it was late in the day, De Gourgues would have 
waited, deferring the assault until the morrow. But 
the Spanish commandant, who must needs hasten his own 
swift destruction, gave the word for threescore shot to 
sally out from the fort to discover the number and valor 
of the enemy. The Spaniards falling thus into a trap of 
their own making, De Gourgues hemmed them in before 
and behind, and hewed them down — all save the fifteen 
reserved with ominous purpose. Seeing this, the rest of 
the garrison in terror fled from their fort and plunged 
into the forest. There, turn what way they might, the 
soldier's pike confronted them and the savage sprang out 
upon them. In the stern work of retribution the arm of 
neither Frenchman nor Indian grew weary until the last 
one was fallen and the vengeance done. 



French Vengeance. 47 

And what of the captives, the three fifteens, reserved with 
sinister intent by De Gourgues ? This is the record of 
their fate, given in the old chronicle — 

%\t regt of X\t ^paniarUcg \z\^^ Icti atoap prifioncrs \isx'C^ 
m^t ot|)erfi, after t()at t|)e (^enerall l)ali fiI)etDCti tijem t^^ torong; 
tD()ic|) tl)ej) |)ati tione toitfjout occasion to all X\z jFrencf) 
iQation, toere all ()ang:cK on t^e ijousN of i\)t same treeg 
to|)ercon t[)e JFrencb Nng:; of tobicf) numljcr fiue |)ati been 
^^angeti ftp one ^paniarli, to^tl^j ncto perceii)in5 Mmeelfe in 
Ij^e lii^ mifiierable estate, confeggeli |)i6 fault anlr t[)e itist 
iutisment toMcl^ <^t>i ^at( trouff^t npon I)im» 

^ut ix^, fiteati of t[)e toritinff to()ic(i Peiro ^elenUe^ l^aU 
|)an5eli oijer t|)em, importing: t()e6e toorlieB iyi Spaniel), " 3f tioe 
not Hi^xi as unto JFrencI) men, but as unto lttt()eran6/* 
(25ourg:tte6 caufieti to be imprinteU toiti) a searing: iron on a 
table of JFirretoooIi, " 3f ^oe not t()is as unto ^paniarUes, nor 
as unto ;plariners, but as unto ©traitors, Eobbers, anJj f^ViX- 
tl)erers/* 

A fire, which had been kindled by some Indians that 
they might broil fish to feast the Frenchmen, lighted the 
train of the powder magazine and blew up the store- 
houses of the Spaniards; and the Indians, who had helped 
to build Fort Caroline, now demolished its walls and 
leveled it with the ground. The joy of the savages at 
the destruction which had overtaken their enemies knew 
no bounds; and they came in from all the villages, flocking 
to De Gourgues to honor him with praises and gifts as 
their friend and deliverer. One ancient crone declared 
that "she cared not any longer to die, since she had seen 
the French once again in Florida and the Spaniards 
chased out." 

Having assembled his company to return thanks to 



48 Old St. Augustine. 

God for their victory and to pray for a safe voyage home 
again, and taking leave of the Indians, who cried aloud 
with sorrow at his going, Dominique De Gourgues, his 
mission accomplished, set sail for France, where in due 
time he arrived, having eluded the pursuit of "eighteen 
Pinnesses and a great Shippe of two hundred Tunnes, full 
of Spanyardes, which being assured of the defeat in 
Florida, followed him to make him yeeld another account 
of his voyage, than that wherewith hee made many French- 
men right glad." 




VIIL 

AFTER TWENTY YEARS. 

WENTY summers have come and gone, since that 
September day of Spanish pomp in Seloy. The 
romance of Florida has departed. No city of 
gold has been found, nor mountain of treasure, nor pearl 
fishery, nor fountain of youth. One illusion after another, 
all have vanished. The magnificent dream is over, 

Florida is an unprofitable possession, it has contrib- 
uted no revenues to the crown, nor will it ever; but with 
jealous hand the Spanish monarch maintains his grasp 
upon the barren province. Though he will not occupy 
the land himself, others may not enter; and here at San 
Augustin he is constructing his fortifications to menace 
the other nations. 

The town is an insignificant military post, whose garri- 
son is dependent for sustenance upon the supply ships 
from Spain. Opposite the fort, on the northern shore of 
the island, at the southern point, now called by the sol- 
diers La Matanza (The Place of Slaughter), and at 
other points north and south along the coast, beacons 
have been erected to light the plate fleets from Mexico 



50 Old St. Augustine. 

and Peru, passing through the Florida channel on their 
way to Old Spain. 

Well had it been for the French, twenty years before, 
had the warning ray of some mighty beacon flashed out 
over the waters to turn them from the fatal coast. 

The storms of twenty winters have bleached the sands 
of that haunted shore, where with his companions sleeps 
the martyr, Jean Ribault. The illustrious Cavalier, Don 
Pedro Menendez d'Aviles, Adelantado of the Provinces of 
Florida, Knight Commander of Santa Cruz, of the Order 
of Santiago, and Captain-General of the Oceanic Seas, 
died in, the year 1574, honored by Pope and sovereign 
and in the full flush of his fame. Eight years later, in 
1582, "to the great griefe of such as knew him," died 
the Chevalier Dominique De Gourgues. The Para- 
coussy Satourioua, too, has gone the way of his race; 
and after the custom of their tribe, his subjects have 
planted about his grave the circle of arrows, placing in 
the center his cassine cup, chiefest memorial of wisdom 
and valor; and with wailing and tearing of hair have 
observed the appointed thirty days of mourning. 

So one by one the personages, whose deeds have been 
recorded in the first chapters of our story, have passed 
away. Spanish bigot. Huguenot victim, French avenger, 
savage ally — each has played his part, and gone to his 
reward. New actors take their places. 

In 1586 came the English Sea-Kings. 



IX. 

THE ENGLISH SEA-KINGS. 




HE English seaman of the Sixteenth century was 
cast in heroic mould. It was the time of Gil- 
bert, Frobisher, Grenville, Drake and Raleigh. 
These were the captains; and their crews were of like 
spirit — eager to sail out into the wonderful New World, 
explore untried seas, extend the glory of the English 
name, and above all to burn gunpowder against the 
Spaniard. For to English seaports, with the tales of new- 
found El Dorados beyond the sea, came dark stories of 
Spanish cruelty to British seamen in the Western waters. 
Armed with his Papal Bull of Donation, giving him sole 
right and title in the two Americas, the pretentious Don 
regarded as intruders all others who dared to trespass on 
his domain. French Huguenot or English heretic, it was 
all one to him — the ship was scuttled or burned, and the 
crew turned over to the Inquisition. What that meant, 
English seamen too well knew. Some of them had been 
stretched upon the rack at Seville; and had seen their 
comrades give out their lives amid the flames of the 
auto-da-fd at Madrid. Chained to the oars and with 



52 Old St. Angles tine. 

backs bared to the lash of the slave-driver, men of Devon 
were enduring the torture of heat and thirst and scourg- 
ing in the banks of Spanish galleys. Clad in the oppro- 
brious San Benito, men of Plymouth were wearing out 
their lives in the gloom of Peruvian mines; and yet other 
Englishmen were rotting in the dungeons of the Ever- 
lasting Prison Remediless at Cartagena. The memory of 
these things, which had been endured, nay, were even 
now being suffered by comrade and friend, and by son 
and brother, nerved the English sailor's arm to strike a 
blow at the Spaniard wherever found. 

To resentment for individual wrongs was added the 
broader motive of patriotism. England and Spain were 
not at open war, but the peace between them was far 
from being hearty or long enduring. Philip II. was col- 
lecting his invincible armada, to overwhelm the British 
Islands and add them to his already colossal empire of 
two-thirds the known world; and Queen Elizabeth, fear- 
ing to precipitate the blow, which she knew must come, 
maintained a policy of discreet inaction. Not so her 
loyal sea captains. They burned with impatience to be 
away to cut off the gold-trains and intercept the plate- 
fleets; and, by crippling the Spanish monarch's resources^ 
delay, if they might not finally avert, the coming of the 
armada. Many a stately carack from the Indies, sailing 
home to Old Spain, struck her colors at the English sea- 
king's bidding; and more than once, when the Spanish 
prize had been taken, along with the bars of silver and 
the ingots of gold, they brought forth from her hold, as 
from the dead, some maimed wretch of an English cap- 
tive — and so by one stroke was England's enemy spoiled 



The E7iglish Sea-Kings, 53 

of his treasure, and the familiars of the Holy Office 
were cheated of their prey. 

Two expeditions already had "that right rare and 
thrice worthy Captaine, Francis Drake," led against the 
Spaniards in the West; first, when at Nombre de 
Dios he showed his men the way to the Treasury of 
the World, and a second time, when in the Golde7i 
Minde he ploughed a furrow round the whole world; 
and from each voyage he had returned again to 
Plymouth with great store of silver and gold, that 
would else have gone to swell the invader's might. 
But notwithstanding this staying of his treasure, the in- 
domitable Spanish monarch went on adding galleon to gal- 
leon and armament to armament; and year by year the 
rumors that reached the ports of the sturdy little island 
grew more alarming. So it happened that in 1585, Philip 
having laid an embargo on English ships, and thus given 
him provocation anew, Francis Drake must needs go 
forth again to sack the cities of the Spanish Main. 

On September 14, 1585, admiral of a fleet of twenty- 
iive ships and pinnaces and a company of 2,300 men, 
Drake sailed out of Plymouth. One of his captains was 
the Arctic explorer, Martine Frobisher, not long before 
this returned from his search for the Northwest Passage 
to Cathay, and from guiding his pioneer bark amid the 
icy perils under the North Star, now come to court new 
hazard in fighting Spaniards beneath the Southern Cross. 
Making for the coast of Spain, the Englishmen over- 
hauled a stout Spanish ship laden with Poore John (the 
sailors' name for dried Newfoundland fish); extorted 
from the Governor of Bayonne a present of "wine, oyle, 



54 



Old St. A Mp'ustine, 



s 



apples, marmalad and such like;" and off Vigo captured 
a flotilla of caravels, in one of which they found "a great 
crosse of silver of very faire embossed worke and double 
gilt all over, having cost a great masse of money." Com- 
ing to the Cape Verde Islands, they took Porta Praya and 
St. lago; and having dallied long for the ransoms of 
those wretched towns, finally set out on their mission, 
and turned their prows 

" Westward ho ! with a rumbelow, 
And hurra for the Spanish Main, O ! " 

The fleet arrived off San Domingo, Hispaniola, on 
New Year's Day, 1586. Two companies of troops 
landed, entered the gates on opposite sides of the city, 
cut their way through all opposition, met in the market- 
place in the center of the town, there took their stand, 
demanded ransom, enforced the demand by firing the 
city, received finally 25,000 ducats, and then sailed away 
to the Main. By a furious onslaught and after much 
desperate fighting, they made themselves masters of Car- 
tagena, and set about securing the ransom. What with one 
day burning the houses and plundering the treasury, and 
the next dining and wining Bishop and Governor — and 
other grotesque medley of sacking, spoiling and conflagra- 
tion, with divers courtesies and "all kindness and favor" — 
six weeks passed away. Finally the 120,000 ducats de- 
manded were laid down; and then the fleet was ready to 
set out for the real destination of the enterprise. This 
was the Spanish treasure houses at Nombre de Dios and 
Panama, where the gold and silver were stored awaiting; 
transportation to Spain. And thither they would now 
have gone but for the raging of a ''verie burning and 



The English Sea-Kings. 55 

pestilent ague," which had been contracted at St. lago, 
and of which several hundred of the men had already- 
died. "With the inconvenience of continuall mortalities," 
writes the historian of the expedition, "we were forced to 
give over our intended enterprise, to goe with Nombre 
de Dios, and so overland to Panama, where we should 
have strooken the stroke for the treasure, and full 
recompence of our tedious travails." Accordingly, with 
what plunder they had already secured, they turned their 
faces homeward, and set sail for England. On the 20th 
of May, being then off the Florida coast, they came in 
sight of a watch tower, which was a token to them that 
there were Spaniards here. Their hostility to the race 
was sufficient inducement for them to approach the land 
and fall upon the settlement; but when they found that it 
was none other than San Augustin, a more particular mo- 
tive urged them on to the attack. This San Augustin 
was the town founded by Pedro Menendez d'Aviles, a 
Spaniard with whom Admiral Francis Drake and all other 
English sea-kings had a long-standing account to adjust. 
Twenty years before this, certain Spanish ships of the 
Indian fleet. Admiral Don Pedro Menendez d'Aviles in 
command, had come upon five brigs flying the Cross of 
St. George at the main. Menendez gave chase, overtook 
the brigs, delivered his broadside into them and cried, 
"Down with your flags, ye English dogs, ye thieves and 
pirates !" And in due time, the Englishmen being inca- 
pable of defense, the flags came down, and the crews 
were handed over to the tortures of the Inquisition. 
The memory of this Spanish outrage, as of all others like 
it, had been cherished by English sailors; and many a 



56 Old St. AiigMsti7te. 

captain had looked forward to the time when fate should 
make him its chosen avenger. Upon Menendez himself 
retaliation might not be wrought. Death had taken him 
away unpunished; but here in Florida was the town 
he had planted, and upon it and its people, by a sort of 
poetic justice, the debt might now be discharged. 

Drake's flagship, the Elizabeth Bonaventura, with the 
Pri7?trose, the Tyger and the others of the fleet, came to 
anchor off the harbor; and manning their pinnaces the 
Englishmen set out for the shore. What then transpired 
between Spanish soldiers and English sea-kings is related 
by Lieutenant Thomas Gates, one of Drake's officers, 
whose narrative, told after the manner of his time, is 
more befitting than any we could devise, so we will let 
him relate it: — 

"After three dayes spent in watering our Ships, wee 
departed now the second time from this Cape of S. An- 
thony, the thirteenth of May, and proceeding about the 
Cape of Florida, wee never touched anywhere; but coast- 
ing alongst Florida and keeping the shore still in sight, 
the 28 of May, early in the morning, wee descried on the 
shore a place built like a Beacon, which was indeede a 
scaffold upon foure long mastes raised on ende, for men 
to discover to the seaward, being in the latitude of thirtie 
degrees, or very neere thereunto. Our Pinnesses manned 
and comming to the shore wee marched up alongst the 
river side to see what place the enemie held there; for 
none amongst us had any knowledge thereof at all. 

"Here the Generall tooke occasion to march with the 
companies himselfe in person, the Lieutenant generall 
having the A^antguard; and going a mile up or somewhat 



The English Sea-Kings. 57 

more by the river side, wee might discover on the other 
side of the river over against us a Fort, which newly had 
bene built by the Spaniards; and some mile or thereabout 
above the Fort was a little Towne or Village without 
walles, built of woodden houses, as the Plot doeth plainely 
shew. Wee forthwith prepared to have ordinance for the 
batterie; and one peece was a little before the enemie 
planted, and the first shot being made by the Lieutenant 
generall himselfe at their Ensigne, strake through the 
Ensigne, as wee afterwards understood by a Frenchman, 
which came unto us from them. One shot more was then 
made, which strake the foote of the Fort wall, which was 
all massive timber of great trees like Mastes. The Lieu- 
tenant generall was determined to passe the river this 
night with 4 companies, and there to lodge himselfe in- 
trenched, as neare the Fort as that he might play with 
his muskets and smallest shot upon any that should ap- 
peare; and so afterwards to bring and plant the batterie 
with him: but the helpe of Mariners for that sudden to 
make trenches could not be had, which was the cause 
that this determinat'on was remitted untill the next 
night. In the night, the Lieutenant generall tooke a 
little rowing skiffe and halfe a dozen well armed, as Cap- 
taine Morgan and Captaine Sampson, with some others be- 
sides the rowers, and went to view what guard the enemie 
kept, as also to take knowledge of the ground. And 
albeit he went as covertly as might be, yet the enemie 
taking an Alarme, grew feareful that the whole force was 
approching to the assault, and therefore with all speede 
abandoned the place after the shooting of some of their 
peeces. They thus gone and hee being returned unto us 



58 Old St. Augustme. 

againe, but nothing knowing of their flight from their 
Fort, forthwith came a Frenchman, being a Phipher (who 
had been prisoner with them*), in a little boate, playing 
on his Phiph the tune of the Prince of Orange his song; 
and being called unto by the guard he tolde them, before 
he put foote out of his boate, what he was himselfe, and 
how the Spaniards were gone from the Fort; offering 
either to remaine in hands there, or else to return to the 
place with them that would goe. 

^'Upon this intelligence the Generall and the Lieuten- 
ant generall, with some of the Captaines in one Skiffe, 
and the Vice-Admirall with some others in his Skiife, and 
two or three Pinnesses furnished of Souldiers with them, 
put presently over towards the Fort, giving order for the 
rest of the Pinnesses to follow. And in our approch 
some of the enemie, bolder than the rest, having stayed 
behinde their companie, shot off two peeces of ordinance 
at us; but on shore wee went, and entered the place 
without finding any man there. 

''When the day appeared wee found it built all of tim- 
ber, the walles being none other but whole Mastes or 
bodies of trees set up right and close together in manner 
of a pale, without any ditch as yet made, but wholy in- 
tended with some more time; for they had not as yet 
finished al their worke, having begunne the same some 
three or foure moneths before: so as to say the trueth, 
they had no reason to keepe it, being subject both to fire 
and easie assault. 

"The platforme whereon the ordinance lay was whole 
bodies of long pine trees, whereof there is great plentie, 

* A marginal note tells us that this was Nicholas Burgoigne. 



The English Sea-Kings. 59 

layd a crosse one on another and some little earth 
amongst. There were in it thirteene or fourteene great 
peaces of Brass ordinance and a chest unbroken up, 
having in it the value of some two thousand pounds ster- 
ling, by estimation, of the King's treasure, to pay the 
souldiers of that place, who were a hundred and fiftie 
men. 

"The Fort thus wonne, which ihey called S. John's 
Fort, and the day opened, wee assayed to goe to the 
towne, but could not, by reason of some rivers and 
broken ground which was betweene the two places: and 
therefore being enforced to imbarke againe into our Pin- 
nesses, wee went thither upon the great maine river, 
which is called as also the Towne by the name of S. 
Augustin. 

"At our approching to land, there were some that 
began to shew themselves, and to bestow some few shot 
upon us, but presently withdrew themselves. And in 
their running thus away, the Sergeant Major, finding one 
of their horses ready sadled and brideled, tooke the 
same to follow the chase; and so overgoing all his com- 
panie was (by one layd behinde a bush) shotte through 
the head; and falling downe therewith, was by the same 
and two or three more stabbed in three or f oure places of 
his body with swords and daggers, before any could 
come neere to his rescue. His death was much la- 
mented, being in very deede an honest wise Gentleman, 
and a souldier of good experience and of as great cour- 
age as any man might be. 

"In this place called S. Augustin, wee understood the 
King did keepe, as is before said, one hundred and fiftie 



6o Old St. Augtistine. 

souldiers, and at another place, some dozen leagues 
beyond to the Northwards, called S. Helena, he did there 
likewise keepe an hundred and fiftie more, serving there 
for no other purpose than to keepe all other nations from 
inhabiting any part of all that coast; the government 
whereof was committed to one Pedro Melendez Marquesse, 
nephew to that olde Melendez the Admiral, who had 
overthrowen Master John Hawkins, in the bay of Mexico, 
some seventeene or eighteene yeeres agoe. This Gov- 
ernor had charge of both places, but was at this time in 
this place, and one of the first that left the same. 

"Heere it was resolved in full assembly of Captaines to 
undertake the enterprise of S. Helena, and from thence 
to seeke out the inhabitation of our English countrymen 
in Virginia, distant from thence some sixe degrees 
Northward." 

The Englishmen burned the town, demolished Fort 
San Juan de Pinos, took on board the cannon and money, 
and not forgetting the French fifer, sailed away from San 
Augustin. They were deterred by the want of a pilot 
from their intended enterprise of St. Helena, and went on 
to Virginia. Directed, after the custom of those days, by 
the smoke of a great conflagration kindled on the land, 
they found Raleigh's people at Roanoke Island; and the 
colony was in such sorry plight that they were all taken 
aboard. Among the rest was Governor William Lane, 
for whom is claimed the credit (disputed by him with 
Raleigh and others) of having, on this voyage with Drake 
home from San Augustin in the year 1586, first intro- 
duced into England "that Indian weed they call tabacca 
and nicotia, or tobacco." Laden with booty and ran- 



The English Sea-Kmgs. 6i 

soms, and its admiral having "made himself a terrible 
man to the King of Spain" (as the English Minister 
wrote home from Madrid), the fleet entered Plymouth 
harbor once more. In the following year Drake made 
another expedition to Cadiz, to "singe the King of Spain's 
beard;" and then, in 1588, Philip's Invincible Armada 
at last sweeping down upon England, the Elizabeth Bona- 
ventura went into the fight, and Drake and Frobisher 
and all other loyal English sea-kings made their valiant, 
victorious and forever memorable stand in that great 
naval combat, whose like the world had never seen, and 
on whose tremendous issue hung the life of Protestant 
England and, in after years, the destinies of her colo- 
nies in North America. 

When the supply ships came from Spain to San 
Augustin, with reinforcements for the garrison and ma- 
terials for building anew Fort San Juan de Pinos, the 
new comers related to those here the fate that had 
overtaken the Armada called the Invincible. And as 
they told the bitter story — how of its one hundred and 
fifty floating castles ninety-six had gone down, shattered 
by English cannon shot and consumed by fire-ships in 
the Channel, and engulfed amid the fury of the elements 
in the North Sea; and then, how of all its 30,000, sol- 
diers, seamen, knights and galley-slaves, barely one-third 
had looked upon the shores of Spain again — they men- 
tioned, more than once, the English ship, The Revenge^ 
and its captain, Francis Drake, at whose name the eager 
listeners interrupted the tale, and heaped their bitterest 
Spanish maledictions on the man who had ravaged their 
town and demolished their fort. 




X. 

THE FRANCISCANS. 

O FLORIDA with the adventurer had come the 
missionary; one to win treasure, the other to 
win souls. The gold-seeker returned from his 
quest chagrined; not so the Franciscan. He found 
here a field vast beyond reckoning; and, waiting to be 
gathered, a harvest more precious than had been pic- 
tured in the fondest dream of his pious enthusiasm. 
The military prestige of Florida soon faded away, but 
year by year its religious importance increased; and 
ever, with the expansion of his work, the Franciscan's 
zeal grew more intense and his labors more devoted. 

The country was in time erected into a religious prov- 
ince, with a chapter house of the Order of San Francisco 
at San Augustin; and thence the members went forth to 
plant the standard of their faith in the remotest wilder- 
ness. Far out on the border of savanna, in the depth of 
forest, and on the banks of river and lake, by the side of 
the Indian trails westward to the Gulf, north among 
the villages of Alachua, and south to everglade fast- 
nesses; here and there, and everywhere that lost souls 



The Franciscans. 63 ^ 

-were worshipping strange gods, the Franciscan built his 
chapel, intrenched it round about with earthwork and 
palisade, and gathered the erring children of the forest 
to hear the wondrous story of the Cross. 

The missionaries came to Florida as messengers of 
the Prince of Peace, but not even is this chapter of our 
history free from its stain of tragedy. In the ancient 
Spanish tome, parchment-bound and blurred with age, in 
which are chronicled the passing of the years in this old 
city by the sea, amid the records of wars and the exploits 
of military personages, a page is now and then devoted 
to the labors and sufferings of the Franciscan Fathers; 
and among them is a relation of what befell, in the year 
1597, at Tolomato and other Indian villages not far from 
San Augustin: — 

"For two years the friars of San Francisco employed 
themselves in preaching to the Indians of Florida. In 
the village of Tolemaro, or Tolomato, dwelt Brother 
Pedro de Corpa, a renowned preacher and expounder of 
the doctrine; against whom arose the eldest son and heir 
of the cacique of the island of Guala, who, being dis- 
pleased with the blame which Father Corpa had laid 
upon him, for being a Christian and living worse than a 
Gentile, left the village, because he could not endure 
such treatment. He, however, returned to the village in 
a few days, towards the last of September, bringing many 
Indians prepared for war, with bows and arrows, and 
adorned with large feathers on their heads; and, entering 
silently into the town at night, they went to the house 
where the father lived, broke down the frail gates, found 
him on his knees, and killed him with a battle-axe. 



64 Old St. Augustine, 

This unexpected atrocity became known in the village, 
and although some showed signs of grief and sorrow, 
the majority, who were less oppressed thereat, on the 
appearance of the son of the cacique joined themselves to 
him. On the following day he said to them: 'Now the friar 
is dead. It w^ould not have been thus had he let us live 
as before instead of becoming Christians. Now let us 
return to our old customs, and prepare for our defence 
against the punishment which the Governor of Florida 
will undertake against us, which punishment, if carried 
out, will be as severe for this friar alone as it would have 
been had we killed them all; for, in just the same way 
will we be persecuted for this one friar whom we have 
killed, as for all of them.' 

"That which was done was newly approved of by 
those who followed him; and they said that there was 
no doubt that vengeance would be taken the same for 
one as for all. Then the barbarian continued: 'Since we 
will suffer no more punishment for one than for all, let 
us regain the liberty that these friars have taken from us 
with promises of benefits that have not appeared, and in 
the hope of which they have wished that we should 
experience evils and torments — these people whom we 
call Christians. They have persecuted our old people, 
calling them witches. They have deprived us of our 
women, leaving us only one, and she for all time, forbid- 
ding us to exchange them. They have broken up our 
dances, banquets, feasts, fires and wars, so that, not ac- 
customed to them, we are losing the ancient valor and 
dexterity of our ancestors. Yet our labor is of some 
consequence to them; * * * * and although we are will- 



The Franciscans, 65 

ing to do all that they say, yet they are not content. 
Always they are scolding us, troubling us, oppressing us, 
preaching to us, calling us bad Christians, and depriving 
us of all the happiness that our ancestors enjoyed. With 
the hope that they will give us Heaven, they are deceiv- 
ing us by getting us under subjection, working us into 
their ways. What have we to look for, if not to be 
slaves ? If we put all to death, we throw off this heavy 
yoke at once, and our valor will reach the Governor, who 
may then treat us well.' The multitude agreed in what 
he said; and as a sign of their victory they cut off the 
head of Father Corpa, and placed it on a spear in the 
door as a trophy of their conquest, and they hid the body 
in a wood, where it could never be found. 

"Passing to the village of Topiqui, where dwelt Brother 
Bias Rodriguez, they entered suddenly, telling him they 
had come to kill him. Brother Bias asked them to allow 
him first to say a mass, and they suspended their ferocity 
a short time for this; and as soon as he had finished say- 
ing it they gave him so many blows that they finished 
him, and cast his body out in the field that the birds and 
beasts might devour it. But none would approach it 
except a dog, who was attracted to it, and touching it, 
fell dead. Afterward an old Indian, who was a Christian, 
recognized it, and gave it burial in the wood. 

"Thence they went to the village of Assopo, in the 
island of Guala, where were Brother Miguel de Aufion 
and Brother Antonio Badajoz. These knew in advance 
their approach; and flight being impossible, Brother 
Miguel began to say mass, and Brother Antonio adminis- 
tered the Blessed Sacrament, and both engaged in prayer. 



66 Old St. Aitgustirie. 

P-^'ir hours after, the Indians entered, and put Brother 
Antonio to dea h at once with a macana,^ and afterwards 
gave Brother Miguel two blows with it; and having left 
the bodies in the same place, some Christian Indians 
buried them at the foot of a very high cross, which this 
same Brother Miguel had erected in the field. 

"The Indians continued their cruelty, and went in 
great haste to the village of Asao, where lived Brother 
Francisco de Velascola a native of Castro-Urdiales, a 
very poor and humble monk, but of such great strength 
that he caused the Indians great fear. He was at that 
time in the city of San Augustin. Great was the trouble 
of the Indians, because it seemed that they had accom- 
plished nothing if they left Brother Francisco alive. 
They inquired in the village the day that he would return 
to it, and they were at the place where he had to land, 
hidden amongst a kind of rushes near the water's edge. 
Brother Francisco came in a canoe; and dissimulating 
their real purpose, they ran to him and caught him by 
the shoulders, giving him many blows with the macanas 
and axes, until his soul entered to God. 

''They passed on to the village of Aspo, where lived 
Brother Francisco Davila, who, as soon as he heard the 
tumult through the doorways, took advantage of the 
night to escape in the field. The Indians followed hi.n, 
and although he had concealed himself in a thicket, 
they sent three arrows into his shoulder by the light of 
the moon, and trying to follow to finish him, an Indian 
interfered, to whom he was left for the poor clothing that 
he had, to whom he was delivered naked, and well bound, 

* A wooden weapon tipped with flint. 



The Franciscans. 67 

and was carried to a village of infidel Indians to be held 
in bondage there. 

''But the punishment of God did not fail these cruel 
ones, for many of them who took part in these murders 
were hanged with the cords of their own bows, and others 
perished horribly; and throughout the province God sent 
a great famine, of which many Indians died/' 

Other massacres followed. But not thus was the 
planting of the Faith in Florida to be arrested, nor thus 
were the laborers to be deterred from gathering the har- 
vest. Led into deadly ambush by pretended converts, 
whose hearts had been seared by Spanish cruelty; smit- 
ten down in sacerdotal robe at the very foot of the altar; 
their chapels robbed and burned by savage, English sea- 
man and Boucanier; their brothers, on the way from 
Spain, swallowed up by the sea, in the sight of the con- 
vent at San Augustin — through all this, and more, the 
Franciscans' zeal endured, and their enthusiasm burned 
w-th an ever brighter glow. Nor was the flame finally 
quenched, until that after time, when the British — having 
first plundered the chapels and led away the mission 
flocks into captivity — came at length into possession of 
the country; and the Franciscan departed with the Span- 
iard out of Florida. 

The accessible records of the Franciscans here are few 
and meagre. How far their missions extended, how 
numerous were the converts who bowed before their 
persuasive eloquence, what they did and endured, their 
sufferings and martyrdoms, toils, triumphs and achieve- 
ments — these perchance are recorded in the monastic 
archives of the order, and thence some time may the 



68 Old St. Aiigttstinc. 

golden story be yet transcribed, v;hen, indeed, the pen 
shall be found that is worthy to' write it. 

Long years after the Franciscans had abandoned their 
missions in Florida, and their chapels had fallen into 
decay, the Quaker botanist William Bartram, camping at 
night beneath the moss-hung oaks on the border of the 
great Alachuan savanna, saw on the dark bosom o/ an In- 
dian woman, suspended by a tiny chain from her wampum 
collar and shining in the firelight, a silver crucifix. And 
again, in the early years of the present century, a band of 
American explorers in tie Everglades, penetrating to 
Lake Okeechobee, found on one of its islands the ruins 
of a structure of stone; and there, overgrown by tangled 
verdure, its Ora pro nobis corroded by the elements, its 
voice dead with the lapse of untold years, lay a mission 
bell, in its silence still eloquent of the sunny days, long 
ago, when the worshippers gathered at its call; and the 
dusky hunter halted in the chase, and the women paused 
in the maize fields, to kneel with uncovered head at the 
ringing of the Angelus. 




XI. 
THE BOUCANIERS. 

^A SIEMPRE FIEL CIUDAD— the ever-faithful 
city — was planted here by the sea, to take what 
fortune the fates might send. In 1665 they 
sent the Boucaniers. 

The domestic animals imported by Columbus and his 
followers into the island of Hispaniola, and abandoned 
there when the mines had been exhausted, reverted to a 
wild state and increased and multiplied. Herds of 
horses and cattle pastured on the savannas, droves of 
hogs made their lair in the jungles; and packs of dogs, 
sprung from those brought by the Spaniards to hunt the 
Indians, ranged over the island, savage as wolves and 
preying on the cattle and swine. A band of French sea- 
rovers came to the northern coast of the island in 1630, 
and finding the game there worthy of their prowess, 
established a colony of hunters and butchers. Armed 
with heavy muskets and attended by the dogs, which 
they tamed and trained to assist them in the chase, these 
men spent their lives in the pursuit of the huge prey, 
upon whose flesh they depended for subsistence. The 



70 Old St. Atigustine, 

meat was prepared after the Carib fashion, being smoked 
or boucaned (from the Indian word boucan), whence the 
hunters received their name of Boucaniers. Their life 
was one of continuous hardship and hazard. Engaged 
one day in terrible conflict with the wild bulls, and the 
next in yet more desperate fray with the Spanish 
lanceros, who were sent to drive them from Hispaniola, 
they became inured to the most extreme physical priva- 
tion, and grew in spirit as fierce as their savage prey. 
The ranks of the first comers were subsequently recruited 
by the arrival of other lawless French and Dutch, until, 
having gained strength by these repeated accessions, the5r 
intrenched themselves in impregnable island strongholds 
and successfully repulsed the Spanish expeditions sent to 
dislodge them. 

At length, apprehensive of the growing power of these 
voluntary exiles so strongly banded together, and having 
utterly failed to overcome them by other expedients, 
Spain landed her troops and waged a war of extermina- 
tion upon the wild cattle of Hispaniola. The game thus 
destroyed, and with its destruction their means of sub- 
sistence gone, the Boucaniers exchanged one savage 
occupation for another. From seeking food, they turned 
to seek revenge; from the forests, they took to the sea;, 
from hunting wild bulls, they went to hunting Spaniards. 
The name Boucanier no longer signified the inoffensive 
hunter, living on his boucan; taking on a new and 
ominous import, it meant the sea-rover, whose whole soul 
was intent upon revenge, and who lived only that he 
might pursue his enemy. The first and true sea Bou- 
caniers were not pirates, waging an indiscriminate war oa 



The Boucaniers. Ji 

all mariners; they singled out Spanish ships. Their im- 
pelling motive was not greed, but hate. Afterwards 
these hunter-seamen from Hispaniola, the Boucaniers 
proper, were joined by other freebooters. There was, 
for instance, the gay Parisian, Ravenau de Susson, who, 
being heavily in debt and desirous of extricating himself 
from his pecuniary embarrassments in an honorable man- 
ner, enlisted with the Boucaniers, that he might have 
wherewithal to satisfy his creditors. Another French- 
man, Montebaro, reading of the execrable cruelties of the 
Spaniards in America, conceived so violent a hatred of 
them that he speedily set out to the West Indies, 
where he became a Boucanier chief and won and wore 
right worthily his cognomen of "The Exterminator." 

Absolved from the laws and customs of their native 
land, the Boucaniers devised a code of their own for the 
conduct of their enterprises and the division of booty. 
When a prize had been taken, an indemnity was first 
paid to such as had been wounded in the action, the 
amount awarded each one being proportioned to the 
nature of his injury; and if a comrade had been killed 
in the fray his share was given to some hospital, and the 
beneficiary was admonished to pray for the soul of the 
dead. The wounded and killed having thus been 
provided for, the rest of the plunder was divided equally, 
share and share alike, each man taking an oath on his 
gun that he had kept nothing back; and if any liar was 
detected among them, him, taking to a desert island, they 
left to starve; and his share of the prize went to purchase 
masses for the souls of comrades slain in the fight. 

No sooner had the Boucaniers been driven from their 



72 Old St. Augustine . 

island retreat than they became the scourge of the Span- 
ish Main. Boucanier sail hovered about the plate-fleets; 
and woe to the galleon that lagged behind or was sepa- 
rated from her convoys; the rovers fell to the attack, be 
the odds what they might. It is related that Pierre-le- 
Grand, one of these first of the hunter-avengers, put to 
sea with twenty-eight men in a canoe, and at dusk bore 
down on a huge treasure-laden galleon. Rowing along- 
side in the darkness, the adventurers scuttled their 
canoe, scrambled for very life over the rails of the ship, 
and before the dumbfounded crew recovered from their 
terror at what they cried out were veritable devils from 
the deep, made themselves masters of the prize. Such 
was their warfare. The sight of a Spanish sail was ever 
a signal for pursuit. Were the chances desperate, so was 
the onslaught terrific; the crew knelt on the deck for 
prayer, then went into the fight with the fury of demons. 
Not content with devastating the seas, the Boucaniers 
sacked the ports, and marching overland, plundered the 
rich cities of the interior. The appearance of their ships 
on the coast was everywhere greeted with alarm; before 
their coming the citizens retired into the citadels, or fled 
in consternation to the wilderness. 

From such a band of hostile sea-rovers preying, upon 
the Spanish possessions in America, San Augustin could 
not hope for immunity. The attack came in 1665, and 
in this wise. 

A certain Dutch Boucanier, John Davis, having 
cruised long without taking a prize, resolved upon 
the sacking of Granada, a town of New Spain, forty 
leagues inland, and defended by a garrison of 800 troops. 



The Boucaniers. 73 

Coming upon the coast in the night, Davis concealed his 
ship among the mangroves of the lagoon, and with sixty 
men in three canoes set out on his perilous enterprise. 
They rowed up the stream by night, and during the day 
lay concealed in the thick foliage of the banks. The 
third midnight they reached the gate of the city. To 
the sentinel's challenge the first comers replied that they 
were fishermen. He admitted them. They stabbed him. 
Then they separated; and going in different directions 
through the silent streets, knocked at the houses. The 
doors were opened as to friends. In rushed the Bou- 
caniers, and rummaged for plunder. From the dwellings 
they hurried to ransack the churches, pillaged the plate 
and stripped the ornaments from the altars. Roused out of 
its midnight slumber by these invaders — none knew whom 
nor whence — the city straightway was in an uproar. Tre- 
mendous was the hurly-burly. On every side were heard 
cries and lamentations of those who had been robbed. 
Recovering their wits, the citizens rallied, rang the alarm- 
bells, beat the drum, and rushed to arms. Suddenly as 
they had come, the Boucaniers were off again. Well 
laden with plunder, and carrying along some prisoners, 
they made all haste to the lagoon, where their ships were 
awaiting them; exchanged their captives for a ransom of 
beef; up with their sails; and drew out from shore just in 
time to escape a volley of bullets, sent after them by 500 
Spanish infantry, who came dashing on the double-quick 
down to the water's edge. With their booty of above 
4,000 pieces-of-eight* in ready money, besides great 
quantities of plate uncoined and many jewels, all of 

* A Spanish coin of the value of one dollar. 



74 Old St. Augtistine. 

which was computed to be worth the sum of 50,00a 
pieces-of-eight or more, they sailed away to Jamaica. 
"But as this sort of people," says an old writer who was 
himself a Boucanier, ''are never masters of their money 
but a very little while, so were they soon constrained ta 
seek more by the same means they had used before." 

His exploit at Granada having caused Captain John 
Davis to be esteemed an able commander of such enter- 
prises, presently after his return to Jamaica he was chosen 
admiral of a fleet of seven or eight Boucanier ships; and 
sailed away to the north of Cuba, where he lay in wait 
to intercept the plate-fleets on their way to Spain. Days^ 
weeks and months went by, but no treasure ships came;, 
and his patience at length being exhausted, the redoubt- 
able admiral bethought him of some other luckless Span- 
ish town upon which to make proof of his valor. And 
so it came to pass that, one fine morning in the year 1665, 
the sentinel in the watch-tower opposite San Augus- 
tin, having descried to the south a Boucanier sail,, 
fired the alarm-gun and hoisted the signal flag. Hearing, 
and seeing which, the distracted inhabitants took to their 
heels — the garrison after them; and all together fled into 
the interior. There, the Boucaniers behind and the 
savages in front, with what fortitude they could muster 
they lay in concealment; until the invaders, having found 
neither victims nor booty, demolished the houses, and 
put to sea again. lis ny firent pas grand butin, car les 
Habitajis de ce lieu son fort pauvres^ says the record — "they 
did not find much booty, for the people of this town are 
ve^y poor." 




XII. 
BRITISH CANNON BALLS. 

HE two fortified strongholds of Penpacola on the 
Gulf and San Augustin on the Atlantic; here 
a fort and there a watch-tower; and scattered 
through the province a score or two of intrenched mis- 
sion posts — this was Florida, a century and a half after 
Menendez had come to establish his Western empire. Of 
the Spanish possessions north of Mexico, San Augustin 
was still the most important, and the completion of its 
elaborate defenses was the task of the King's agents 
here. From Old Spain and the Havannah the cartel- 
ships brought fresh bands of convicts, to join the cap- 
tive Indians in their toil at the fortifications; year after year 
the chain-gangs hewed the blocks of coquina shell-stone 
from the quarries on St. Anastatia Island; the galley-slaves 
ferried their burdens over the Matanzas; and tier upon tier 
rose the curtains and bastions, and above them the ramparts 
and battlements, of Fort San Marco. The expenditure of 
treasure, toil and life, through all these years, was not to be 
in vain; the castle was destined yet to withstand the shock 
of war, that else would drive the Spmiard from Florida. 



76 Old St. Augtistine. 

New foes menaced San Augustin. English planters 
had come to establish the colony of Carolina. This was 
a trespass upon Spanish territory, and was promptly 
resented. Emulating the zeal of Menendez, the Governor 
of San Augustin dispatched his galleys to exterminate 
the intruders; but his well-laid plans miscarried; and the 
fruitless expedition came back in disgrace.* Years of 
contention followed. The pirates, who preyed on Spanish 
commerce, found ready protection in Charles Town, and 
sold their booty there; the Carolina tribes captured 
Spanish Indians, and took them to the English merchants, 
who traded them off for rum and sugar in the West 
Indies. The Spanish Governor, in turn, promised the 
indentured white servants of the British colonists protec- 
tion and liberty in Florida, proclaimed freedom for run- 
away slaves from Carolina plantations, and welcomed all 
fugitives from justice. For the outrages suffered at the 
hands of the other, each race sought retaliation. Fleets 
of galleys went out to plunder and burn the Carolina 

* The spirit of the time is shown by the following incidents, set forth in the 
report of a committee of the Commons House of Assembly of the Province of 
South Carolina, 1740:— '•'• In 1686 * * * * Lord Cardross ***-■! having 
just come over and settled at Beaufort on Port-Royal with a number of North- 
Britons, the Spaniards coming in Three Galleys from Augustine landed upon them, 
killed and whipped a great many, after taken, in a most cruel and barbarous 
manner ; plundered them all and broke up that Settlement. The same Galleys 
* * * * run up next to Bear Bluff on North Edisto River, where these Spaniards 
again landed, burnt the Houses, plundered the Settlers, and took Landgrave Mor- 
ton's Brother Prisoner. Their further Progress was happily prevented by a 
Hurricane, which drove two of the Galleys up so high on the Land that not being 
able to get one of them oflf again and the Country being by that time sufficiently 
Alarmed, they thought proper to make a Retreat, but first set Fire to that Galley 
on board of which Mr Morton was actually then in Chains and most inhumanly 
burnt in her," Hewit (History of South Carolina) tell us that Sullivan's Island 
received its name from one Florence O' Sullivan, to whom the settlers gave a great 
gun, "which he placed on an island situate at the mouth of the harbor, to alarm 
the town in cases of invasion from the Spaniards." 



British Cannon Balls. yy 

settlements; and the English invaded Florida and ad- 
vanced upon San Augustin. 

In 1702, with an army of regulars, militia and Indians, 
came Governor Moore, of Carolina, to chastise the Span- 
iard, sack the town, demolish the castle and lead home a 
retinue of Indian slaves. At his approach, garrison and 
townspeople withdrew into Fort San Marco, shut them- 
selves in with supplies for four months, raised the draw- 
bridge and laughed defiance at the British forces. 
Moore invested the castle and entered upon a regular 
siege. There were sorties, feints and strategies. The 
siege was maintained for three months; and then, tired of 
the fruitless bombardment, Moore dispatched one of his 
officers to Jamaica for heavier artillery. Hardly had the 
ship disappeared to the southward, when two vessels, fly- 
ing the Spanish ensign, hove in sight oif the bar. Presto ! 
the siege was raised; ships, stores and ammunition aban- 
doned; and the Englishmen incontinently vanished. 
Back, three hundred miles overland to Charles Town, 
went Moore; and out from behind the coquina bastions 
came the released Spaniards, and set about the task of 
building anew their burned dwellings. 

Four years later an armament set sail from San Augus- 
tin bent on the destruction of the British. When they 
arrived off the coast, the columns of smoke on Sullivan's 
Island signaled their coming; thunder of alarm-gun, roll 
of drum and clatter of mounted couriers spread the 
tidings; and obedient to the call, the planters rallied to 
Charles Town, repulsed the Spaniards, took 300 prison- 
ers, and drove the rest back to the shelter of San 
Augustin. 



^8 Old St. Atigustine. 

Mock warfare this. But where Spanish prowess availed 
naught, Spanish craft might yet triumph; where pike and 
bullet failed, the scalping-knife might yet do its work. 
The Indian received his commission, and terrible was its 
execution. Persuaded that the English were heretics, 
who must go to perdition, whither the savage too must 
follow, unless he drove them from the land — Yemassee, 
Creek and Cherokee fell upon the Carolina settlers in 
midnight surprise, massacred men, women and children; 
and frenzied with their success, brought the scalps in 
triumph to San Augustin, where ringing of bells and 
firing of guns welcomed them, and gave token of the 
general rejoicing here. 

Meanwhile the English colony of Georgia was founded, 
with outposts planted on the very peninsula of Florida; 
and now more bitter than ever grew the warfare. English 
scout-boats patrolled the inland waters, and cut off the 
escape of runaway Carolina slaves, on their way to join 
the regiment of negro fugitives at San Augustin. Spanish 
costa-guardas cruised off the Georgia and Carolina har- 
bors, intercepted English merchant ships, and brought 
the crews to join the chain-gangs in the Anastatia quar- 
ries. Once, indeed, there came a lull, when Governor 
Don Francisco del Moral assented to a proposal for the 
adjustment of the boundary dispute. But for such a 
lack of spirit, unbecoming a Spaniard and unworthy the 
Governor of Florida, Don Moral was speedily summoned 
home to Madrid, where by royal decree his head was 
severed from his shoulders, and bis estate sequestered 
for the defenses of San Augustin; and under new rule, 
the town resumed once more its martial air, and made 



British Cannon Balls. 79 

ready, as well indeed it might, to withstand yet again 
the attack of its foes. 

In June, 1740, Governor Oglethorpe, of Georgia, set 
out with an army by land and a fleet by sea to destroy 
San Augustin and drive the Spaniard out of Florida. 
*'If it shall please God to give you success," ran the 
royal instructions from the English King, George II., 
*'you are either to demolish the fort and bastions, or put 
a garrison in it, to prevent the Spaniards from endeavour- 
ing to retake and settle the said place again at any 
time hereafter." But neither King of England nor 
Governor of Georgia knew the strength of the coquina 
walls it was thus proposed to overthrow. 

The British mustered all their forces: the Grena- 
diers from Gibraltar; kilted Highlanders armed with 
Claymores and marching to the bagpipes; Saltzburger 
religious refugees, who had heard the story of the 
Huguenots' fate in Florida; Carolina militia, intent on 
avenging the savage massacres of their friends; and a 
troop of Carolina Indians, eager to wreak their hatred on 
the Spaniards. The hosts came on as to victory. Fort 
San Mateo capitulated at their approach. They drove in 
the Horse Guards from the San Juan, carried Fort San 
Francisco de Poppa by assault, routed the garrison from 
Fort Picolata, captured the fortified plantation of San 
Diego; and advancing within two miles of the town 
itself, stormed Fort Moosa, which was occupied by a 
regiment of runaway Carolina slaves, and drove its 
garrison into San Augustin. 

Now the time was come to prove the strength of 
coquina-built San Marco. Within its walls a strange 



8o Old St. Augustine, 

assemblage was gathered. The inhabitants of the town, 
old and young, had flocked to its protection; and with 
them were the garrison of regulars, the host of friendly 
Indians, the negro troops, and the convicts, now given 
their liberty and supplied with arms. Altogether, shut 
up in the fort, were 3,000 souls. 

The British fleet, with Oglethorpe in command, arrived 
off the bar; the troops disembarked; the cannon were 
landed; and batteries were planted on St. Anastatia 
Island, opposite the fort, and at Point San Mateo on the 
north shore of the harbor. Mortar and coehorn opened 
fire on San Marco; and the Governor of Georgia de- 
manded of the Governor of Florida to surrender. To the 
summons, Manuel de Montiano sent back an answer 
worthy the gallant Spanish Don he was, swearing "by 
the Holy Cross that he would defend the castle to the 
last drop of his blood; and he hoped soon to kiss his 
Excellency's hand within its walls." A trial of 
strength ensued; but it was not of coquina battlements 
against the crashing of cannon balls. For twenty suc- 
cessive days the batteries on Anastatia discharged their 
missiles, and the walls of San Marco did not tremble. 
The struggle was fiercer than cne of arms. Spanish 
fortitude was pitted against the pangs of starvation; 
EngHsh constitutions were matched against the fierce 
summer heat and the maddening insect hordes of Anas- 
tatia Island. Week after week went by. The beleag- 
ured Spaniards grew gaunt with famine. The British, 
wilting beneath the sun,were prostrated by fevers. On 
both sides the struggle was most desperate; but in the 
end the Spaniard triumphed. Montiano's piteous 



British Cannon Balls, 8i 

appeals were borne down the coast by Indian runners, 
and taken over by messengers in canoes to the Gov- 
ernor of Cuba; and at last succor came. The rescuers 
eluded the vigilance of Oglethorpe, smuggled in the pro- 
visions past the English scout-boats, and by night came 
to the salvation of the 3,000 famishing wretches in the 
fort; whereupon— since a full stomach makes a brave 
heart— the Spaniards took courage again. But to the 
British, time brought no alleviation of their woes. With 
the approach of July the summer's heat grew more piti- 
less; the sandflies, the gnats and mosquitoes, in ever 
multiplying hosts, rallied yet more furiously to their gall- 
ing onslaught. Then came a new peril, a force against 
whose overwhelming might resolution and valor counted 
as nothing. It was that agency which two hundred yeirs 
before had risen to drive the foes of San Augustin to ruin. 
The tempests began to blow; and fearing lest the fate of 
Ribault's fleet should be their own, the British captains 
slipped their cables; and putting to sea, sailed for home. 
Oglethorpe followed. Abandoning artillery, boats and 
stores (at which last the Spaniards were filled with won- 
der and gratitude), the English general crossed over to 
the mainland north of the fort, and with drums beating 
and colors flying, marched away to the San Juan's, and 
thence in periaguas made his retreat back to Georgia. 

There, in good time, Montiano followed, at the head of 
fifty-three ships and 5,000 troops, to exterminate the 
colonies of Georgia and Carolina, as we.l as all to the 
north of them; and so, once for all, to drive the British 
out from North America. At St. Simon's Island Ogle- 
thorpe met him. For fifteen days, with an army of 625 

6 



82 Old St, Augustine. 

the vaKant Englishman held the Spaniard's 5,000 at bay; 
by bold stratagem repulsed and drove them back; and 
following close upon their heels, chased them to the very 
bars of San Augustin and Matanzas; and so made good 
that memorable deliverance of Georgia, "which," George 
Whitefield wrote, "was such as cannot be paralleled but 
by some instances out of the Old Testament." 

So the farcical and fruitless warfare went on twenty 
years longer, as it might have continued to this day, had 
not the mother countries put an end to the contentions of 
their colonial children. By the treaty of 1763, England, 
having previously by force of arms gained possession of 
Cuba, restored that island to Spain; and Spain in return 
made over to England her possessions in Florida. By 
this exchange the San Augustin of the Spaniards became 
the Saint Augustine of the English; and over the battle- 
ments of San Marco, which had so long and so bravely 
held out against the shock of British cannon balls, floated 
the Cross of St. George. 




XIII. 

THE MINORCANS. 

N the Mediterranean, seventy miles from the 
coast of Spain, lies Minorca. The white cliffs 
rise abrupt from a crystal sea. Olive-embos- 
omed villages nestle on the slopes; and beyond, purple in 
the distance, towers the mountain peak of El Toro, the 
convent of Our Lady of the Bull glistening like a star 
on the summit. The people are simple-hearted, honest, 
industrious. Travelers tell us that robbery and begging 
are unknown in Minorca. 

The island has been known in history; here and there, 
amid its orange groves and palms and vineyards, are mon- 
uments of fallen races. Druidical monoliths stand 
mysterious, as they have endured for centuries; 
picturesque remains of Moorish watchtowers crown the 
summits near the sea; mediaeval fortifications crumble on 
the crests of inland hills, scanty patches of wheat are 
grown in the moats of ancient castles; the ilex and the 
cactus clothe the ruins of long deserted monasteries. 

Minorca (named by its Roman conquerors, the Less) 
and Majorca (the Greater) belong to the group of 



84 Old St. Atcgtcstzne. 

Balearic Islands. The name Balearic, derived from a 
Greek vrord meaning to throw, was given to them because 
the islanders were famous for their skill with the sling, 
as are the Minorcan shepherds to this day. In ancient 
times, when the Carthagenians wanted strong-armed sling- 
ers to fight their battles, they found them in tlie Balearic 
Islands; in the Fifteenth century, when Spain needed 
timber for her treasure ships, she built whole fleets from 
the forests of Majorca; in the early part of the Seven- 
teenth century, when the Indian tribes of the Pacific 
coast of North America were waiting for the message of 
the Cross, Majorca sent them Father Junipero, to found 
the Franciscan Missions of California; in the middle of 
the Eighteenth century, when certain English planters 
required stout-he: rted colonists to till their indigo planta- 
tions in the new British province of Florida, they sought 
them in Minorca; and a hundred years later, when 
America, in the desperate throes of civil war, called 
for a hero to take her fleet through the smoke and flame 
of New Orleans and past the rebel forts in Mobile Bay, 
she found that hero in the son of a Minorcan father. 

In the year 1767, a company of London capitalists, 
represented by one Dr. Andrew Turnbull, brought out to 
their grant in Florida fifteen hundred colonists. They 
were chiefly Minorcans, with a few Greeks and Italians. 
The site of the plantation, fifty miles below St. Augustine, 
on Musquito Inlet, was named by Turnbull, after his 
Greek wife's birth place. New Smyrna. It was a fertile 
ridge of land, where the magnolia bloomed and the 
orange grew wild with the jasmine. Here the Minorcans 
built their palmetto huts; set out about the doorways the 



The Minorcans, 85 

cuttings of vine and fig from their Mediterranean island 
home; and incited by the bright promises of reward, 
entered bravey and with hopeful hearts upon the task 
of preparing the wilderness for the crops of sugar and 

indigo. 

The illusion, like many another here in Florida before 
and since, was all too soon dispelled. It was the 
rehearsal of a story old as the days of the Israelites in 
Egypt: on one hand, violated pledges, treachery, exacting 
tyranny and cruelty born of cupidity; on the other, un- 
requited toil, patient suffering, and at the last a broken 
spirit. 

After two weary years had passed, driven to despera- 
tion by the inhuman rule of their taskmasters and in par- 
ticular (since the names of petty tyrants do not always 
perish with their bodies) of one Cutter, the unhappy 
colonists resolved upon flight. To this end, having 
seized some small craft in the harbor, they fitted them 
out from the abundant stores hoarded in the warehouses; 
and were embarking for the Havannah, when a detach- 
ment of English infantry appeared upon the scene, by 
forced march from St. Augustine, arriving just in time to 
intercept the fugitives. The leaders were arrested. The 
grand jury convened. The forms of law were observed; 
and the court sat to do justice between the great planter 
and his New Smyrna colonists. The plaintiff, Turnbull, 
was an influential personage in the province, a man whose 
favor every one was eager to curry. The accused were 
friendless, indentured hirelings— regarded as little better 
than slaves. Of such a trial there could be but one 
ending. Five of the accused were condemned to death; 



86 Old St, Attgtistine. 

one as the ringleader, another for shooting a cow (a 
capital offence in the English code of the time), a third 
for having lopped off an ear and two fingers of the task- 
master Cutter, and the others for their raid on the store- 
houses. Two of the condemned were pardoned; which 
two we are not told, but it is a pleasure to fancy that one 
may have been the ear-smiter. To perform the judicial 
murder of the rest was a task that none of the officials 
coveted; and one of the condemned was given his life 
upon condition that he would act as the executioner of the 
two others. "On this occasion," writes the English sur- 
veyor Bernard Romans, one of the jurors who convicted 
them, *T saw one of the most moving scenes I ever experi- 
enced. Long and obstinate was the struggle of this 
man's mind, who repeatedly called out that he chose to 
die rather than be the executioner of his friends in dis- 
tress. This not a little perplexed Mr. Woolridge, the 
sheriff, till at length the entreaties of the victims them- 
selves put an end to the conflict in his heart by encourag- 
ing him to act. Now we beheld a man, thus compelled 
to mount the ladder, take leave of his friends in the most 
moving manner, kissing them the moment before he 
committed them to an ignominious death." 

So the revolt at New Smyrna was put down; and the 
colonists went back to their taskmasters and indigo fields. 
The crop-eared Cutter, we may be sure, had his revenge; 
but, as in due time every rascal must get his deserts, 
shortly thereafter he died a lingering death, '^having 
experienced," says the chronicle, "besides his wounds, 
the terrors of a coward in power overtaken by venge- 
ance." 



The Minor cans, 87 

The wrongs of the Minorcans in Florida were the talk 
of the Southern colonies; but no one interfered in their 
behalf, for no one had courage to incur the enmity of 
Turnbull. Worn out by toil, famishing for food, 
pining for their island home beyond the sea, the unhappy 
exiles wasted away. The death rate was terrible. In 
nine years from their coming, the 1500 had shrunk to 
600. The condition of the survivors was little better 
than slavery; indeed, did they attempt to escape, negroes 
on the neighboring plantations carried them back and 
received from the tyrant a reward. 

The weary years went by. Seven summers the Minor- 
cans tilled the indigo fields; seven harvest times they 
crushed the sugar cane. At length came the end. 

In Florida, two hundred years before, the religious 
intolerance of Europe had been reflected in the conflict 
of Spaniard and Frenchman at Fort Caroline; and the 
Massacre of St. Bartholomew had been foreshadowed in 
the slaughter of the Huguenots at Matanzas. So now, 
here at New Smyrna was to be enacted on mimic scale 
a movement engaging the attention of the world. It 
was 1776— a momentous year for British misrule in 
America. Revolt was in the air. The oppressed colony 
at New Smyrna caught the spirit of the times. 

It was a trivial circumstance that brought about the 
uprising of the Minorcans. A party of gentlemen had 
gone down from St. Augustine to New Smyrna, to 
inspect the great canal?, the stone piers and the 
magnificent new mansion cf the proprietor; to learn the 
methods of indigo culture, and to test the virtues of 
the famous rum made from Dr. Turnbull's sugar 



88 Old St. Augtistine. 

cane. As they were admiring the thrifty condition of 
the plantation and smacking their lips over the rum, 
cne of them, noticing the squalor and misery of the 
laborers, observed to a companion that the Governor 
at St. Augustine ought to interfere to protect them. This 
remark of one of Turnbull's guests led to a revolution. 
A Minorcan boy heard it. He repeated it to his mother; 
she to trusted friends. A whispered conference, a secret 
meeting, a mdnight consultation — and the plan was 
devised to reach the ear of the Governor. Three of the 
men, having performed their allotted tasks before the 
time appointed by the overseer, asked and were granted 
permission to go down the coast to hunt for turtles. 
They set out and went with all speed, not south for 
turtles, but north for liberty. Following the beach, 
skulking through the woods, swimming the inlet at 
Matanzas, they hurried on to St. Augustine. Here they 
were given audience, assured of protection, and then 
sent back to lead their people out of bondage. Oher 
secret meetings were held, and preparations for flight 
soon made. They had no househod gods to trans- 
port. No one lingered this time for cuttings of vine and 
fig tree. Pellicier, head carpenter, was chosen to the 
command. He formed them in a hollow square. In the 
center were the aged, the infirm a d the mothers with 
babes in arms; in the outer ranks the men and 
boys, equipped with club , wooden spears and su:h rude 
weapons as could be improvised in the emergency. 
Bidding farewell to their palmetto huts, the strange band 
of fugitives set out for the city of refuge. They went 
this time not skulking along the coast, but marching 



The Mtnorcans. 89 

boldly along the open King's Road. The overseers pur- 
sued. Little they cared for overseers now. TurnbuU 
himself, returning home to find his plantation deserted, 
in hot haste followed after. What feared they from 
TurnbuU now ? He might ride back to New Smyrna, or 
on to St. Augustine, as he likad; it mattered not to them. 
At night they camped beneath the pines. The next day 
they marched on again. Before sunset of the third day, 
the motley band came straggling into St. Augustine. 

Again the jury was impanelled; and the court con- 
vened to do justice between the English planter and his 
Minorcan laborers. This time, no provisions had been 
stolen, no cow shot, no taskmaster's ear curtailed; nor 
could TurnbuU invent any other pretext why the ring- 
leaders of this new revolt should be hung. The pinched 
faces and hungry eyes of his victims pleaded too well 
the pathetic story of their wrongs. This time, again, 
the trial could have but one ending. The planter was 
rebuked; the fugitives were declared to be free. Thus, 
in 1776, for the Minorcans in Florida, after nine years 
servitude, was made good their declaration of independ- 
ence. 

The refugees from New Smyrna had come to St. 
Augustine in the midst of stirring events. They saw 
the leaders of the great Revolution in the North burned 
in effigy on the public square; and with the loyal citizens 
of the town many of the Minorcans enlisted in the Florida 
Rangers, and went out to fight the traitors of the neigh- 
boring colonies. Led by the notorious Colonel Browne, 
the recruits in the service of the King saw hard fighting, 
and before the war was over had abundant opportunity 



90 Old St, Augustine, 

to learn of what stuff patriots are made. It is a notable 
circumstance that in this same year, 1776, when the 
Minorcans from New Smyrna were enlisting to help put 
down the revolt of the colonists, one of their countrymen 
— a certain George Farragut — emigrated from Minorca 
to America and joined the Colonial army, to do distin- 
guished service in the War of the Revolution, afterwards 
in the American-Spanish turmoils in West Florida, and 
again in the War of 181 2; and destined finally, when his 
own honorable record should have been forgotten, to 
have his name and fame perpetuated because linked with 
those of his illustrious son, David Glascoe Farragut, first 
Admiral of the United States Navy. 

The indigo fields at New Smyrna ran to waste; the 
sugar mills fell into decay; and the iron works sank 
into the ground. Over them clambered the yellow jas- 
mine and the passion flower; above them the magnolia 
bloomed once more; and years afterwards, a party of 
explorers found the wild orange growing out from the 
rusted boilers. So kindly nature drew over the ruins her 
mantle of green, and blotted out with flowers each vestige 
of the unhappy site. 







< 

V 2 






XIV. 

RANGERS AND LIBERTY BOYS. 




N 1775 came the American Revolution. Of the 
fourteen British colonies Florida alone re- 
mained loyal. The thunders of Lexington 
and Bunker Hill woke no responsive echoes in St. Au- 
gustine. For two hundred years "the ever faithful city" 
had maintained her allegiance to the Kings of Spain, 
now in like manner she would prove her faith to the 
King of England. No Sons of Liberty held secret con- 
clave in her halls; nor liberty pole rose in desecration 
of her public square. Loyally as ever, on the 5th of 
June, 1776, the citizens joined in the celebration of the 
King's Birthday; and when, three months later, the 
tidings came from Philadelphia of the Declaration of 
Independence, they assembled on the square in the center 
of the city to express their abhorrence of the document 
and its signers by burning in ignominious effigy the two 
arch-rebels, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. 

To St. Augustine was given early proof of the daring 
spirit that animated the Liberty Boys. In April, 1775, the 
British brig Betsey arrived with arms and ammunition 
for the Creeks and Cherokees, who had been enlisted in 
the cause against the colonies. The vessel lay at anchor 



92 Old St. Augustine, 

off the bar, in plain view of the Governor's lookout tower 
and of Fort St. Mark's, and almost within gunshot of the 
war-ships in the harbor, when a privateersman, sent out 
by the South Carolina Council of Safety and manned by 
twelve Liberty Boys, stole alongside, surprised the crew, 
overpowered the grenadiers on board, transferred a large 
quantity of the powder to their own craft, spiked the 
Betsey's guns; and eluding pursuit, actually made off 
with their booty to Charleston, whence some of the 
powder was sent to the patriots of Massachusetts and 
burned against the British in the battle of Bunker Hill. 

The town was a haven of refuge for the King's ser- 
vants and the Tories, who fled from the revolted colonies. 
She opened her gates; and an oddly-assorted throng 
came flocking in. From Georgia appeared the Tory 
colonel, Thomas Browne — the tar and feathers given 
him by the Liberty Boys still sticking to his skin;* 
and not long after, followed Daniel McGirth — once as 

* This day a respectable body of the Sons of Liberty marched from this place 
to New Richmond in S. C. in order to pay a visit to Thomas Browne and William 
Thompson, Esqs., two young gentlemen lately from England, for their having 
publicly and otherwise expressed themselves enemies to the measures now adopted 
for the support of American liberty, and signing an association to that effect; 
besides their using their utmost endeavours to influence the minds of the people 
and to persuade them to associate and be of their opinion. But upon their arrival 
they found the said Thompson, like a traitor, had run away ; and the said Thomas 
Browne being requested in civil terms to come to Augusta, to try to clear himself 
of such accusations, daringly repeated that he was not nor would be answerable 
to them or any other of them for his conduct, whereupen they politely escorted 
him into Augusta, where they presented him with a ;jenteel and fashionable suit 
of tar and feathers, and afterwards had him exhibited in a cart from the head of 
Augusta to Mr. Weatherford's, where out of humanity they had him taken proper 
care of for that night ; and on the next morning, he, the said Thomas Browne, 
having publicly declared upon his honour and consented voluntarily to swear that 
he repented for his past conduct, and that he would for the future, at the hazard 
of his life and fortune, protect and support the rights and interests of America, 
and saying that the said Thompson had misled him, and that therefore he 
would use his utmost endeavours to have his name taken from the association he 



Rangers and Liberty Boys. 93 

stout-hearted Liberty Boy as any in the South, then 
victim of official wrong, and now deserter to the King's 
cause. f Still another accession was the valcrou3 Scotch- 
had signed as aforesaid ; and further, that he would do all in his power to dis- 
countenance the proceedings of a set of men in the 96th District in South 
Carolina called Fletchall's Party ; upon which the said Browne was then dis- 
charged, and complimented with a horse and chair to ride home. But the said 
Thomas Browne, that time having publicly forfeited his honour and violated the 
oath voluntarily taken as aforesaid, is therefore not to be considered for the future 
in the light of a gentleman, and they, the said Thomas Browne and Wm. Thomp- 
son, are hereby published as persons inimical to the rights and liberties of Amer- 
ica ; and it is hoped all good men will treat them accordingly. N. B. — The said 
Thomas Browne is now a little remarkable ; he wears his hair very short, and a 
handkerchief tied around his head in order that his intellects this cold weather 
may not be affected. — (Signed) By order of Committee, John Willson, Secretary. 
Augusta, 4th August, 1775. — Georgia Gazette^ i775- 

+ During the Revolutionary War, the section of the Stiite now known as Bulloch 
Countj' was a favourite resort of Colonel Daniel McGirth. He was a native of 
Kershaw District, South Carolina. From his early attachments and associates, 
he joined cordially in opposition to the claims of the British Government. Being 
a practised hunter, and an excellent rider, he was well acquainted with the woods 
in that extensive range of count^J^ He was highly valuable to the Americans 
for the facility with w hich he acquired information of the enemy, and for the accu- 
racy and minuteness with which he communicated what he had obtained. He 
had brought with him into the service a favourite mare, his own property, an 
elegant animal, on which he felt safe from pursuit when engaged in the duties of a 
scout. He called the mare the Gray Goose. This animal was coveted by one of 
the American officers at St. Ilia, in Georgia, who adopted means to obtain pos- 
session of her, all of which were opposed by McGirth, chiefly on the ground that 
she was essentially necessary to the American interest in the duties performed by 
him, and without htr he could no longer engage in them. The officer con- 
tinuing urgent, McGirih said or did something to get rid of him, which 
he might have only intended as a personal rebuff, but probably was much 
more. He was arrested, tried by a court-martial, found guilty of violating 
the articles of war and sentenced to be whipped. He suffered this punishment, 
and was again placed in prison, waiting to receive another whipping, according to 
his sentence. Whilst thus situated, he saw his favourite mare, observed where she 
was picketed, and immediately began to concert measures for his escape and the 
re-possession of his mare. He succeeded in both, and when seated on her back, 
he turned deliberately round, notwithstanding the alarm at his escape, and 
denounced vengeance against all the Americans for his ill treatment. He executed 
his threats most fully, most fearfully, most vindictively. Indulging this savage, 
vindictive temper, was indeed productive of great injury to the American cause, 
and of much public and private suffering, but it was also the cause of his own ruin 
and misery. — yohnson' s Traditions ar.d Reminiscences 0/ the American RevO' 
lution in South Carolina. 



94 Old St. Augusltne, 

man, Rory Mcintosh, captain in His Majesty's High- 
landers, who, attended always by his pipers, paraded 
the narrow streets, breathing out threatenings and 
slaughter against the rebels. A British slaveship from 
Senegal, forbidden by the patriots to land her cargo at 
Savannah, sailed in all haste to the friendly harbor of St. 
Augustine, to save from starvation the two hundred 
miserable wretches in her hold. The Scopholites (so 
called from their leader, one Scophol), a turbulent and 
lawless band, 600 strong, marched down from the back- 
country of North Carolina, plundering, burning and 
laying waste all in their path through Georgia. 

With such an element St. Augustine was not long con- 
tented with passive loyalty. When Governor Tonyn called 
for volunteers to aid in suppressing the rebellion, the 
response was heartily and promptly given. Captain Rory 
Mcintosh fitted out the privateersman Toreyn, of twenty 
guns, and sailed away to blockade the rebel ports. Citi- 
zens, Tory refugees, Scopholites, Minorcans and Indians 
banded together in the troops of the Florida Rangers. In 
command was Colonel Thomas Browne, brave and skill- 
ful, as heartless as vindictive, and eager to gratify his 
animosity against the Georgians. McGirth, also, thirst- 
ing for retaliation, mustered a band of desperate outlaws, 
provided them with stolen horses, and conducted a 
guerilla campaign, cutting off lonely travelers, rifling 
dwellings, and everywhere marking his path with pillage, 
rapine and murder. It was the old story of warfare 
between Florida and Georgia; but more bitter than had 
been the conflicts of Spaniards and British were now the 
contentions of Ranger and Liberty Boy, more desperate 



Rangers and Liberty Boys, 95 

than ever the war of races, was this rancorous civil strife, 
where brother contended with brother and father fought 
against son. 

As the center of military operations against the South- 
ern colonies and as the depot whence arms were furnished 
to the savage allies of Great Britain, St. Augustine soon 
attracted the attention of the Patriot leaders; and re- 
peated campaigns were planned to compass its overthrow. 
The first of these, undertaken by General Charles Lee, 
fell through, because of mismanagement and delay. Then 
rumors were brought to St. Augustine of another for- 
midable force advancing to overwhelm the town. Con- 
sternation reigned supreme; slaves were impressed to 
strengthen the fortifications; the citizens ran hither and 
thither in confusion, placed their valuables on board the 
ships in the harbor, and prepared for flight. The alarm 
was groundless. Never yet had the city yielded to a 
siege. The fortress that had defied the grenadiers of 
Oglethorpe had no cause to tremble at the coming of the 
Liberty Boys. The invaders advanced only to the St. 
John's. There they halted. Then, menaced by fever, 
and glad enough to escape the perils of a midsummer 
encampment, they turned about and retired. 

The Florida Rangers were active, aggressive and 
successful in their campaigns. The Minorcans and 
Scopholites from St. Augustine joined the Hessians from 
New York at the siege of Savannah, and afterwards took 
part in the reduction of Charleston. When that city 
surrendered, in 1780, a number of her citizens were 
paroled. Soon after, in direct violation of the parole, 
many of them were torn from their families and confined 



96 Old St. Augustine. 

in the loathsom:^ prison-ships or banished to other 
colonies. The cartel-ship Fidelity brought a number of 
the Charleston Patriots to St. Augustine; and here they 
were offered another parole. Most of them accepted it; 
but the venerable Christopher Gadsden, the Lieutenant 
Governor of South Carolina, indignantly resented the 
overture. "With men who have once deceived me," he 
exclaimed, "I can enter into no new contract." Then, 
for eleven months, they shut him up in one of the dark 
dungeons of the fort. From out the gloom of that damp 
chamber came one day a declaration that gave to the 
Loyalists of Florida new proof of the spirit that sustained 
the Patriots in their most desperate straits. Andre, the 
spy taken by the cowboys at Tarrytown, had been 
tried and condemned to death. Pending the execution 
of the sentence, the British authorities sent to General 
Washington a threat that, if Andre died, some prominent 
Patriot would be hung in retaliation; and to the white- 
haired prisoner Gadsden, in his dungeon of the British 
fort in St. AugULtine, it was told that he was the victim 
selected. To the threat, hear his reply: "To die for my 
country," said he, "I am always prepared; and I would 
rather ascend the scaffold than purchase with my life her 
dishonor." Brave words these, and of all ever spoken in 
the fort of St. Augustine most worthy to be remembered. 
The other Patriots, from South Carolina and New 
Jersey, fared less harshly. Dr. Andrew TurnbuU loaned 
them his English newspapers — little consolation for 
American rebels there — and Jesse Fish sent oranges and 
lemons from his world-famous grove on St. Anastatia 
Island. On the Fourth of July (1780), by special per- 



Rangers and Liberty Boys, 97 

mission they messed in common; and one feature of the 
bill of fare was an English plum-pudding of gigantic 
dimensions, and on its top a tiny flag with thirteen stars 
and stripes. Inspired by the occasion, Captain Thomas 
Heyward had that morning been busy with h's pen; and 
at this Fourth of July Patriot dinner in British St. Augus- 
tine was heard for the first time the hymn afterwards 
sung from Georgia to New Hampshire — 

"God save the thirteen states, 
Thirteen united States, 
God save them all." 

The verses were set to the familiar tune of "God Save 
ths King;" and the British guard.', peeping in at the 
windows and deceived by the accustomed air, wondered 
greatly at what they took to be the Yankees' sudden return 
of loyalty to King George. 

While contending with her American Colonies, England 
had become involved in hostilities with Spain; and now it 
came about by the whirligig of time that the town, which 
as a Spanish stronghold had sent out many an armed 
force against the British, now as a British possession dis- 
patched a forlorn hope against the Spaniards. Among 
the Tory officers, who had found their way to St. Augus- 
tine, was Colonel Andrew De Veaux of the Provincial 
Dragoons. De Veaux, who was noted through all the 
Southern colonies for his audacity and foolhardiness and 
his strong penchant for practical joking, resolved on 
attempting to capture the Spanish town of Nassau, on 
the island of New Providence. In the conception and 
execution of his exploit, humor and valor were blended 
in very nearly equal proportions. He fitted out two 



98 Old St. Augustine. 

small brigs in the harbor, collected a force of Rangers, 
Minorcans, Seminoles and ragamuffins; and at the island 
■of Eleuthra took on a contingent of negroes. The 
Tidiculous fleet arrived off Nassau in the night. De 
Yeaux landed his forces, surprised the sleeping citadel, 
roused up its garrison and put them in irons; occupied 
the heights commanding the town; disposed his forces to 
the best advantage, and where there were not enough 
men to go round set up dummies of straw; at dawn made a 
mock show of strength, demanded of the Governor to 
surrender, and to insure a speedy compliance opened 
fire on him from the captured fort; whereupon the 
Spaniard submitted, and yielded himself and his town and 
his troops to the doughty British Colonel, the negroes, 
the ragamuffins and the men of straw. 

This happened in 1783, It was the last exploit of loyal 
St. Augustine in the cause of her British sovereign. The 
rebellious colonies had been victorious. The war was 
over. Rangers and Liberty Boys laid down their arms; 
and the Florida planters returned to their fields. With 
them were numerous accessions of Loyalists from the 
other colonies, who had refused allegiance to the banner 
of the thirteen stars and were now come to Floiidato live 
again under British colors. Peace resumed her gentle 
sway; and St. Augustine became once more the busy me- 
tropolis of a thriving English province. Across the bay on 
St. Anastatia Island, north beyond the gates, west from 
the batteries on the San Sebastian, and south beyond the 
stockades — in every direction, smiled the fields of indigo, 
the sugar plantations and the orange groves. The traders 
rebuilt their booths along the Indian trails; the distillers 



Rangers and Liberty Boys. 99 

of tar and turpentine kindled once more their fires among 
the pines; the shingle-cutters felled the cypress logs; the 
live-oakers returned again to hew out the famous Florida 
timber for building English ships. In over the King's 
Road, coming north from the Indian River and south 
from the St. Mary's, crawled the slow wagon trains, creak- 
ing beneath their burdens of naval stores and the harvests 
of the plantations. The harbor was white with the wings of 
commerce. Prosperity reigned on every hand. The town, 
"beautiful amid her orange bowers, bustled with enterprise 
and was gay with social delights. Her citizens rejoiced 
in the present; and their hearts were filled with 
bright anticipations for the future — that future, which 
should bring its full recompense for their seven years of 
war and its fitting reward for their steadfast allegiance to 
their King. 

It vanished in a twinkling. Into the harbor, one day, 
came a ship of the Royal Navy with message of startling 
import. The Most Serene and Most Potent Prince, George 
the Third, by the Grace of God, King of Great Britain, and 
the Most Serene and Most Potent Prince, Charles the 
Third, by the Grace of God, King of Spain and of the 
Indies, had been playing together a royal game of chess; 
and each had surrendered to the other a castle. To Eng- 
land Spain yielded Jamaica; and to Spain England in 
exchange gave Florida. The treaty moreover provided 
that the British should immediately evacuate the province. 

This was the reward granted to the citizens of St. 
Augustine for their staunch fidelity through the seven 
years' war. The message fell as falls the frost that blights 
the orange. Joy was changed into sorrow, anticipation to 



lOO Old St. Augustine, 

dismay, security to despair. The fate of the Acadians 
was theirs; the heart-breaking scenes of Grand Pre were 
rehearsed in St. Augustine. Plantations abandoned, 
homes deserted, friendships severed — in the transports 
sent to convey them, the Br.tish sailed away from St. 
Augustine. Some went south to Jamaica, some north to 
Nova Scotia, others back over the sea to England again; 
but wherever scattered — going never so far, separated 
never so widely — they bore alway with them fond memo- 
ries of the sunny homes they had left behind, in the old 
town on the Florida bay. 



XV. 

THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW. 




NCE more the troops of the King of Spain occu- 
pied Castle San Marco; a Spanish sentinel 
scanned the sea from the watch-tower at Ma- 
tanzas, and a Spanish keeper trimmed the light on 
Anastatia. Spain had come into possession of her own 
again. With the return of the Spaniard, a change came 
over Florida. There was no more planting nor harvest- 
ing; the Indian stalked through deserted indigo fields 
and found shelter in abandoned sugar mills; the manu- 
facture of naval stores ceased; industry was at an end; 
the crowding sails of merchant ships no longer bright- 
ened the harbor. In 1783, Florida relapsed into her 
ancient lethargy; and over our seaport town stole the 
haze of dreamy indolence and the calm of quiet content. 
No feverish vision of commercial enterprise marred the 
serenity of her repose; no vaulting ambition overleapt 
the circumvallations that shut her in from the busy outer 
world. Enough for her that through the long siesta of 
perpetual afternoon she might doze in peace and undis 
turbed. 



102 Old St. Augustine. 

The Minorcans, who still remained on the lands given 
them by the British, fished and hunted; but the town's 
chief dependence was upon the supply ships that came 
from Spain, and the game and beeves brought in by the 
Indians. The Seminole, scantily clad in gaudy blanket, 
his hair and limbs shining with bear's grease, and pend- 
ants of brass and silver hanging from nose and ears, was 
a familiar figure in the streets. Over the well-worn trails, 
from the country beyond the San Juan's, he brought 
horses and cattle, bear meat, venison and wild turkeys; 
and gave them in exchange for powder and fineries and 
the much-prized Cuban rum. The policy of the Span- 
iards was to treat the Indian always with consideration; 
and once in three months came the Queen's schooner La 
Barbarita, laden with presents for her dusky subjects in 
Florida. 

The town was a great military station; and beyond 
this, nothing. In one way or another, the people were all 
engaged in the service of the King. They kept the 
King's accounts, labored at the King's fort, wrought in the 
King's forge, manned the King's pilot-boats, bought their 
bread at the King's bakery and their meat at the King's 
market. The barracks were filled to overflowing with a 
garrison, for which it taxed the Governor's ingenuity to 
find employment. A guard of soldiers kept ward over the 
great treasure chest in the fort; a guard watched at the 
powder-house on the plain south of the barracks; a guard 
noted the marking of high noon on the sun-dial, and by 
the flowing of the sands in the hour-glass on the plaza, 
all day and all night, recorded the passing time by strokes 
en a bell; a guard attended the chain-gang of Cuban 



The Old World in the N'ew. 103 

convicts in their toil at the fortifications; a guard was 
stationed :t the Governor's residence; a guard watched 
at the city gates; a guard patrolled the streets and a 
guard passed the word on the outskirts by night. 

On every land side the city was well defended by 
earthworks and coquina batteries. North of the town, 
from the fort to the San Sebastian River, extended a 
rampart with redoubts and a fosse through which the tide 
ebbed and flowed. Entrance to the city was by a draw- 
bridge over th* fosse and through the gate. When the 
sunset gun was fired this bridge was raised, the gate was 
barred, and the guards took their station. Through the 
hours of the night — from fort to gate, from gate west along 
the parapet to redoubt Tolomato, from Tolomato to re- 
doubt Centre, and from Centro to redoubt Cubo on the 
San Sebastian; thence south along the river to the farthest 
battery, and east to the extreme point of the peninsula; 
then north, past powder-house and barracks, on to the 
plaza, and so back to the watch-towers of the fort again 
— went the challenge, Centinela alerta ! and came the 
answer, Alerta estd I When once the gate was closed, the 
belated wayfarer, be he citizen or stranger, must make the 
best of it without the town until morning. Only on 
extraordinary occasions were the bolts thrown back at 
night, as when some messenger might come with urgent 
dispatches for the Governor; then the creaking draw- 
bridge would be slowly lowered; the officer of the guard 
took the name and errand of the applicant to the Governor; 
and that dignitary so willing it, the gate was finally 
opened and the late comer admitted and escorted by a 
file of soldiers into the Governor's presence. 



I04 Old St. Augtistme. 

An important personage was this Governor, In him 
was vested the authority of the King. His good pleasure 
was the royal will. In the petty kingdom, where his 
power was supreme and Lis word law, he held autocratic 
sway. And high-handed was his rule. Did an obstinate 
debtor put off a creditor with emp y promises instead of 
the current coin of the realm — straightway the Governor 
granted a bill of sale and the delinquent's slaves were 
bidden off at public auction on the plaza. AVas his Ex- 
cellency's own siesta interrupted by th? bawling of a 
drunken disturber of the peace — in a trice the audacious 
guzzler of agua ardie?ite was haled away to the guard- 
house; and there he might bless his stars, if only his legs 
were clapped into the stocks, and net his back bared to 
the lashes of the pillory hard by. 

The stocks and pillory sufficed for the punishment of 
ordinary offenses. When slaves were found abroad in 
the night, without the required passes from their owners, 
they were arrested, locked up in the guard-house; and 
the next n:orning, unless their masters paid the fine, 
were given the prescribed number of lashes. The case- 
mates of the fort served for the incarceration of criminals; 
but the usual course with incorrigible offenders was to 
drum them out of town. Attired in ridiculous garb and 
with pate fantastically shaven, the culprit was marched at 
the head of a jeering procession, to the music of fife and 
drum, out into the scrub, and there formally banished, to 
be thenceforth an outcast and exile. For felons to whom 
was decreed the law's extremest penalty, out on redoubt 
Cubo, gloomily overlooking the marshes of the San 
Sebastian, swung the creaking gil:bet- and hither on cer- 



The Old World in the New, 105 

tain occasion % making public holiday, the entire popu- 
lace wended its way; and the thoughtful father brought 
his son, that by dreadful example the child might learn 
to what sad end a wicked man at last must come. 

The amusements and social customs were those of Old 
Spain and Minorca. Gambling ran high among soldiers 
and townspeople. Countless wagers were decided by 
hard-fought battles between game-cocks of choicest 
Spanish strain; and there were dog-fights, too, and bull- 
baitings, and now and then an ambitious attempt to repro- 
duce the exciting combats of the matadors. Dancing was 
a favorite amusement, and balls were frequent. The 
Florida moonlight night invited to much thrumming of 
guitars beneath lattice windows; and when occasion 
offered, the midnight was made hideous with din of the 
charivari, a noisy, boisterous, discordant and unwelcome 
serenade of the second-married. Funeral processions 
through the streets were led by ihe padre in his robes, 
and by acolytes in surplices, bearing crucifix, candles and 
aspersorium. Feast days and festivals were scrupu- 
lously observed. The Massacre of Madrid was com- 
memorated by the solemn celebration of high mass, and 
the flags throughout the city displaced in mourning. 
With Carnival came mirth and merrymaking; harlequins, 
dominos and punchinellos held high revel; and gay 
companies of maskers went about the streets. Among 
them, taking the part of St. Peter, went one clad in the 
ragged dress of a fisherman, and equipped with a mullet 
cast-net, which he dexterously threw over the heads of 
the not unwilling children, by such rude travesty setting 
forth the Apostolic fishing for men. 



io6 Old St. Augustine. 

In the afternoon of Palm Sunday, priest and people 
marched in procession from the church, south to the con- 
vent, where on its platform in the open air stood an altar, 
decked with flowers and boughs; and here, while the 
congregation kneeled on the ground, a mass was said; 
and the nuns, taking from the little children their baskets. 
of rose petals, strewed them before the altar and the image 
of the Virgin. Then all repaired in procession to the glacis 
of Fort San Marco, where at a second altar the rites 
were repeated. On Easter Eve, the waits went about the 
streets, singing beneath the windows, to the accompani- 
ment of vioHn and guitar, their Minorcan hymn of joy and 
praise to the Virgin — 

Ended the days of sadness, 

Grief gives place to singing ; 
We come with joy and gladness, 

Our gifts to Mary bringing — * 

and received from lattice and opened shutter presents of 
sweetmeats and pastry. 

A strange bit of the Old World was this; and most 
grotesquely out of place in the New. It could not 
long endure. The United States regarded with appre- 
hension the presence of a foreign power on its southern 
boundary. American pioneers were impatient to enter 
the Florida wilderness, which had lain so long fallow, 
waiting to yield its abundant harvest to enterprise and 
industry. Twice had bands of armed invaders from the 

* Disciarem lu dol, 

Cantarem anb' alagria, 
Y n'arem a da 

Las pascuas a Maria. 
O Maria ! 



The Old World m the New, 107 

North crossed the border and advanced to the very shadow 
of the coquina fortress. There, as savage, British and 
Patriot had halted before them, they turned about and 
retired. And well, in truth, they might. Intrenched in 
such a stronghold, the Governor could have held an 
army at bay. The battlements of Castle San Marco stood 
staunch; not against them might the assault of arms 
prevail. But there were other forces, with which, fortify 
himself how he would, the Spaniard was powerless to 
cope. The indolent Don must no longer stand in the 
way of Florida's development. It was manifest destiny; 
and he yielded to it. 

In the year 1821, Spain having ceded Florida to the 
United States, relinquished forever her claim to the town 
her knights had founded two and a half centuries before; 
and here where the stag of Seloy had greeted the Fleur- 
de-Lis of France, and the yellow standard of Spain had 
given brief place to the Red Cross of England, here, 
over the walls of the old city gray with time— waved at 
last the banner, whose bars and stars symbolized the 
strength and the aspiration of the youngest born among 
the nations of the earth. 



XVI. 
THE SEMINOLE. 




N January, 1836, the stoutest hearts in St. Augus- 
tine were thrown into trepidation by portentous 
signals in the sky. By day, above the pines in 
the west were seen great columns of smoke, rolling up 
from fired plantations; and at midnight the heavens were 
lurid with the glare cf blazing homes. Terror-stricken 
refugees came flocking in from the country; and their 
stories added to the general alarm. One day, the fugitive 
was a father whose wife and children had been shot down 
at their noonday meal; the next, a mother whose babe had 
been slain at her breast; and again, a little child, sole 
chance survivor from the massacre of a household. The 
town itself was menaced by the savage foe; children at 
their play glanced furtively toward the west; and the 
citizens — old men and invalids as well — rallied to the 
protection of their homes. 

It was the final furious bursting of a storm which had 
long been gathering. The Seminole war had begun. 

So long as the Spaniards ruled Florida, the Seminoles 
enjoyed undisputed possession of its fairest lands. Their 



The Seminole, 109 

palmetto villages and maize fields lined the fertile banks 
of the Withlacoochee and the Apalachicola; their herds 
of cattle pastured on the Alachuan prairies; and in 
pursuit of game their hunters roamed at will over the 
entire country. With the Indians dwelt many negroes, as 
slaves or free allies, whose ancestors had fled from 
colonial masters, or who were themselves fugitives from 
the plantations of the Southern States. Seminole and 
negro dwelt together in contentment and security; and 
they were prosperous and happy. But when the United 
States took possession of the territory, the Indian's peace- 
ful life was rudely interrupted. The new-comers looked 
with a longing eye upon the rich lands occupied by the 
Seminole, and coveted the negroes— his slaves and friends. 
Land speculators and man kidnappers rushed in. The 
Florida frontier was infested with outcasts, fugitives from 
justice and unprincipled knaves, who were eager to dupe 
the Indian, defraud him of his lands, steal his cattle and 
make merchandise of his negro slaves and his free allies. 
Bitter conflicts ensued. The settlers demanded the 
removal of the Indians to the West; but the Seminoles 
refused to exchange their sunny native land for a strange 
country of which they could learn no good report. The 
border outrages increased, and became more aggravated. 
At length, provoked beyond endurance, and by the 
sense of his wrongs rankling :n his breast goaded to 
final desperation — the savage took the warpath; and with 
rifle, scalping knife and the midnight torch sought 
revenge. Then the United States Government, with a 
treasury and an army at its command, set about the 
trifling task of driving out from Florida this paltry rem- 



no Old St, A ugustine. 

nant of a savage race. In due time the task was accom- 
plished; but not until after seven years of most extraordi- 
nary warfare, the employment of twenty thousand volun- 
teers, the expenditure of forty millions of dollars and 
the sacrifice of two thousand lives. 

Among the Indian leaders, who had been most influen- 
tial in resisting the encroachments of the whites and the 
most determined in opposition to all schemes of emigra- 
tion, were Osceola and Coacoochee.* In a council of the 
chiefs with the agent, when Osceola was asked to sign 
his mark to a treaty of removal, springing up in anger he 
cried, "The only mark I will make is with this," and 
drove his knife through the parchment into the table. 
Later, when the old Chief Nea-Mathla consented to leave 
Florida, and having sold his cattle to the whites was 
gathering his people to emigrate to Arkansas, Osceola at 
the head of a war party killed him, and flung away the 
gold that had been received for the cattle, declaring that 
it was the price of the Sem'nole's blood. Osceola and 
Coacoochee were tl:e first to take up arms against the 
whites; and under their inspiration early examples were 
given of the terrible savage expedients, by which the 
Seminole campaigns were to be made memorable in 
the annals of Indian warfare. 

In August, 1835, Major Dade and a command of troops, 

♦The spelling " Osceola " is that most common, though it is possible that 
some of the nine or ten other forms may be correct. The name signifies " The 
Black Drink." The chief, a full-blooded Indian, has sometimes erroneously 
been called Powell, the name of the Scotchman who married Osceola's mother 
after the death of her Indian husband, Osceola's father. The name Coacoochee 
means " Wild Cat." The Seminoles (" Runaways," or "Men who live apart") 
were originally members of the Creek tribe of Georgia, who, about the year 1750, 
seceded from the tribe and came down to live in Spanish Florida. 



The Seminole. 1 1 1 

2IO all told, were on their way from Fort Brooke to Fort 
Xing. At half past nine o'clock, Tuesday morning, 
August 28, they were marching through an open pine 
barren, four miles from the Great Wahoo Swamp. The 
bright sun was shining; flowers bloomed along the path; 
gay butterflies flitted about them; the silence was 
broken only by the ^olian melody of the pines. The 
men were marching carelessly, with no suspicion of 
danger, where surely no foe could lurk. Suddenly, with- 
out an instant's warning — from pine, from palmetto scrub, 
from the very grass at their feet — burst upon them the 
shrill war-whoop, the flashing and crackling of rifles, and 
the whistling, deadly rain of bullets. Sixty of the troops 
fell mortally wounded. The rest rallied; trained the 
cannon, and attempted to form breastworks of logs; but 
in vain. In quick succession, one after another, they fell. 
Had the earth yawned to swallow them like the army of 
Korah, the obliteration could have been little more com- 
plete. Of the 210, three, miserably wounded, dragged 
themselves away, two soon after to die of their wounds. 

This was the character of the Florida war. It was a 
conflict waged against a mysterious, unseen foe. Nature 
had provided for the protection of her children. On the 
islands of the Great Wahoo and the Big Cypress, in the 
impenetrable fastnesses of the Ocklawaha, and in the dis- 
tant everglades of Okeechobee, the Seminole established 
his powder magazines, cultivated his fields, and found a 
secure retreat for wives and little ones. Thence, in bands 
of ten and twenty, the warriors sallied out for ambush, 
surprise and midnight conflagration. The Indian came, 
none knew whence. A yell, a bullet's deadly whizz, the 



112 Old St, Augustine, 

flash of the scalping knife — and he was gone, none knew 
whither. To follow was useless; pursuit could not over- 
take him. The interior of Florida was a trackless wilder- 
ness. In its mazes the savage was at home; he knew 
every foot of ground. But where the Seminole went the 
white man could not follow. 

The full story of what the troops endured in the 
Seminole war will never be written. They marched day 
after day amid dreary wastes of pines; and with 
lacerated feet pressed on through cruel palmetto scrub. 
They hewed a painful way through hamaks where 
tangled vine and creeper and swinging llianas im- 
peded every step, serpents disputed their passage, and 
progress was gained by inches. They woke the sleep of 
slimy reptiles in the ooze of quaking bogs; the owl blinked 
at them in the hushed twilight of sepulchral swamps; 
they penetrated to the yet more awful desolation where 
no living thing was found. They swam the tawny floods 
of unnamed rivers; breasted the scum of stagnant pools; 
and threw themselves down in bivouac amid treacherous 
sloughs. The scouts, separated from their commands and 
lost in the ghostly shades of moss-hung labyrinths, went 
mad and wandered aimlessly to and fro, until death ended 
their misery. In the darkness of midnight the troops 
crawled on hands and knees to surprise the Indian village; 
and at dawn, rushed upon deserted huts. On every hand 
Osceola and his men lay in wait to cut them oif ; Coacoo- 
chee mocked them floundering in the morasses. The 
scorching sun beat down upon them; protracted storms 
drenched them; fever and pestilence were leagued against 
them; amid deadly vapors they sank and died. For 



The Seminole. 1 1 3 

every soldier killed by the savage (so the official records 
show) five perished of disease. 

The Florida climate precluded summer campaigns. 
When from seamed trunk and gnarled limb the resurrec- 
tion-fern burst forth in living green, the yellow hibiscus 
glowed on margin of swamp and pond, and the splendor 
of the magnolia grandiflora paled before the advancing 
glories of the blazing-star; when on the ground and all 
about and in the loftiest growth of the forest, were flung 
out the floral signals of lurking peril — the troops fled for 
very life from the miasma, and withdrew to the summer 
stations on the coast; and then, in his swampy fastnesses 
secure from molestation, the Indian tended his crops, 
celebrated his green corn dance, and gathered new 
strength for the winter warfare. 

The Seminole made a desperate stand for his Florida 
home. He was exacting from the whites a terrible price 
for the acres they coveted. And even more desperately 
than the Indian, fought the negro fugitive. Defeat for 
him was not the loss of land, but of liberty; to yield 
meant not exile, but bondage. But hopeless was the 
struggle. As time went on, the strength of Indian and 
ally surely waned; year by year their numbers grew less. 
Some were killed, some taken in battle. More were cap- 
tured by ruse and treachery and violations of flags of 
truce. The Indian was a savage — not entitled to the 
consideration accorded a civilized foe. He refused to be 
vanquished in fair fight; the war, then, must be brought 
to an end by other means. 

Special efforts were made to capture the chiefs, Osce- 
ola and Coacoochee. When these two influential leaders 



114 Old St, Augustine. 

should be removed, it was rightly conjectured, the Sem- 
inole's strength would be gone. The opportunity to take 
them finally came. In September, 1838, General Her- 
nandez surprised two camps of Indians and negroes, 
eighteen miles below St. Augustine. The prisoners were 
"brought to town and lodged in the fort. Among them 
was the aged chief, Emathla, Coacoochee's father. In 
response to a message from the old chief, Coacoochee 
came in to St. Augustine for a conference with the com- 
manding officer; and was sent back to bring in other 
chiefs for a talk. He returned with Osceola and seventy 
of his followers. They came with a flag of truce, rely- 
ing upon its sanctity for their protection. It was mis- 
taken confidence. The pretended conference was only a 
ruse of the commanding general. The flag was disre- 
garded; the truce was violated; and the Indians were 
clapped into prison. With Osceola shut in behind the 
ponderous locks of one casemate, and Coacoochee se- 
curely confined in another — reasoned the general, well 
pleased with his stratagem — the other chiefs would aban- 
don the hopeless struggle, lay down their arms and come 
in to be transported to Arkansas. And so indeed they 
would; and the Seminole war might have ended then 
and there. But one Indian prevented it; and he, one of 
the very captives who had been taken by treachery and 
so securely locked in behind the bolts and bars of Fort 
Marion. High up in Coacoochee's cell was a narrow 
embrasure. Through this aperture — his body attenuated 
by secret medicine and fasting — the chief squeezed, one 
night, tumbled to the moat below, and set out to rejoin 
his tribe. When they heard the story he had to tell, the 



The Seminole. ^ 115 

chiefs, who were preparing to yield, took up their arms 
again and waged a war fiercer than ever. 

The other prisoners were removed from Fort Marion 
to Fort Moultrie in Charleston harbor. There Osceola, 
brooding over the fate of his people, fell ill and sank 
into a decline. Obeying to the last the injunctions of 
the sullen Indian prophet who attended him, he stub- 
b)ornly refused the medicines proffered him by the phy- 
sicians. One night, while the prophet muttered in a 
corner, and his two wives sat watching the play of the 
fire-light upon the naked limbs of the dying warrior, 
Osceola smeared the death-paint on his face, drew his 
Icnife from its sheath, brandished it about his head, vainly 
essayed a war shout — and fell back dead. 

The war went on. Congress voted additional millions; 
new troops were enlisted to take the place of those who 
had fallen from the ranks; and man-hunting bloodhounds 
were brought from Cuba to track the Indian to his 
retreats. But money, troops and bloodhounds failed to 
drive out the Seminole. It was reserved for Coacoochee, 
who had protracted the war, finally to end it. 

In May, 1841, the chief left his stronghold in the Big 
Cypress Swamp, and came in for a talk with General 
Worth. Not long before this his band had massacred a 
company of actors, coming from Picolata (on the St. 
John's) to St. Augustine; and had arrayed themselves in 
the plundered costumes. Clad in the garb of Hamlet, 
the Florida savage spoke — 

''The whites dealt unjustly by me. I came to them; 
they deceived me. The land I was upon I loved. My 
body is made of its sands. The Great Spirit gave me 



Ti6 Old St. Attgustine. 

legs to walk over it, hands to aid myself, eyes to see its 
ponds and rivers and forests and game, and a head with 
which I think. The sun which is warm and bright, 
shines to warm us and bring forth our crops; and the 
moon brings back the spirits of our warriors, our wives 
and children. The white man comes; he grows pale and 
sick. Why cannot we live here in peace ? I havelsaid I 
am the enemy to the v/hite man. I could live in peace 
with him; but they first steal our cattle and horses, cheat 
us and take our lands. The white men are as thick as 
the leaves in the hamak. They come upon us thicker 
every year. They may shoot us, and drive our women 
and children night and day, they may chain our hands 
and feet— but the red man's heart will be always free." 

The conference ended, another was arranged. True 
to his word, the chief came to the appointed meeting, 
bearing a flag of truce. The old ruse was repeated. 
The truce was violated. Coacoochee was seized, thrown 
into irons, and placed on board a prison-ship in Tampa 
Bay. At noon of the Fourth of July — while the flag 
of the free was flying from the masthead above him 
and the cannon were booming in glad celebration of the 
liberties of the American people — the manacled chief 
was given a final hard and bitter choice. Within forty 
days — he was told — the people of his tribe must come in 
and surrender themselves for transportation from Florida^ 
or, on the fortieth day, he and his fellow-prisoners should 
be hung at the yard-arm. This time there was no 
escape. The Seminole yielded. 

Within the forty days his people surrendered. Other 
chiefs with their tribes followed. Men, women and 



The Seminole. 117 

children embarked on the ships, which were to bear 
them away forever from the land they loved so well and 
for which they had fought so long. As the exiles left 
the shore, they knelt and kissed its sands. When the 
transports moved away, the men sat in sullen silence 
about the decks; the women and children broke into 
weeping; Coacoochee stood in the sternsheets, gazing 
fixedly upon the receding shore; "I am looking," he 
said, "at the last pine tree on my land." 




XVII. 
LATER YEARS. 

N uneventful period followed the close of the 
Seminole war in 1842. The Minorcans fished 
from their dug-outs and hunted with their 
smooth-bore "Indian traders;" the Cracker carts brought 
in game and scanty produce; the orange growers 
shipped their golden harvests in wind-bound schooners; 
and now and then a tourist from the North found his way 
by uncertain steamer up the St. John's and by more 
uncertain stage across from Picolata, to explore the nar- 
row streets and the dismantled fortress in the quaint old 
Florida town. 

For twenty years, as under a magician's spell, the 
drowsy city slumbered. In 1861, startled by the rever- 
berations from Charleston harbor, it woke to hear again 
the clash of arms. For a brief moment, the flag of 
Florida's rebellion fluttered from its staff on the plaza; 
but St. Augustine was far removed from the active 
theatre of war, and in the fratricidal strife took no con- 
spicuous part. For the town, nevertheless, the war was 
fraught vv'ith important consequences; its close marked 



Later Years. 119 

a new stage in the life of the city. In 1865 set in the 
tide of immigration from the North, which has gathered 
strength with each succeeding year, and has completely 
altered the character of the town. Wonderful has been 
the transformation. At the change let them carp who 
will; and sigh for the olden times as they may. The 
spirit of Old St. Augustine is in abeyance; the enterprise 
of the new rules the hour. Old and new, each has its 
place. New England granite caps the Florida coquina 
of the sea-wall; and both together withstand the surges 
of the Atlantic. 

The metamorphosis in the material aspect of the town 
is one of many like transformations wrought here. To 
tear down and demolish has been the rule with foe and 
friend alike. Indian, Sea-King, Boucanier, British 
invader— each in turn has scourged the town; and after 
the passing of each, it has risen again. If we may credit 
the testimony of visitors here, over St. Augustine has 
always hung an air of desolation and decay. After the 
successive changes of rulers, the new has always been 
built from the old. To use the coquina blocks from a 
dilapidated structure was less laborious than to hew out 
new material from the Anastatia quarries. In this man- 
ner were destroyed the coquina batteries, that in old 
times defended the southern line of the town. The 
stone from one of them was employed in building the 
Franciscan convent, and thence it went into the founda- 
tions of the barracks, which rose on the convent site. 
Another lot of coquina passed through a like cycle of 
usefulness, from outskirt battery into parish church, and 
from parish church to the repair of the city gate. So 



I20 Old St. Augustine. 

universal, indeed, has been this process of tearing down 
the old to construct the new, that there are few edifices 
here to-day, concerning whose antiquity we have satis- 
factory evidence. Boston worships in churches more 
ancient than the cathedral; New Orleans markets are 
older than the disused one on the plaza; Salem wharves 
antedate the sea-wall; on the banks of the Connecticut, the 
Hudson and the Potomac stand dwellings more venerable 
than any here on the Matanzas*. The destructive waves 
of improvement have swept over St. Augustine, resistless 
as the advancing waters of the sea, which now dash over 
the ruins of the Spanish lighthouse they long since under- 
mined; and as persistent as the elements, which have 
leveled to the ground useless ramparts and redoubts. 

Everywhere may be seen evidences of the change. 
The walls of the old powder-house, with its sentry-boxes, 
have been demolished; its site can be distinguished only 
by the sunken foundation-stones. Nothing whatever is 
left to suggest the famous Governor's-house, north of the 
plaza, which stood in the midst of its wonderful botanic 
garden, high-walled all about, and with a lofty lookout, 
whence, like Vathek from his genii-builded tower, the 
Spaniard might gaze abroad over the surrounding country 
and far out to sea. The open square in the center of 
the city — the plaza of the Spaniards and the parade 
ground of the English, where Spanish and British soldiery 



* The cathedral was completed in 1791. The present sea-wall was built in 1835- 
43, The "oldest house in St. Augustine," like ''the old slave-pen" and "the old 
Huguenot burying-ground," is an invention of the sensational guide-book manu- 
facturers It is not known which house in the town is the oldest. The so-called 
slave-pen was built (1840) for a market, and so used. There is no Huguenot 
cemeterj'. 



"•"^ ^ 




Later Years. 121 

have mustered, and after them Seminole war volunteers, 
Confederates and Federals — has been transformed into 
a pleasure park, now more beautiful, we may well believe, 
than even in the palmy days when famous for its 
orange trees of marvelous size and bearing. Though 
the shaft of masonry erected here in 181 2 still remains, it 
is itself a grim monument of mutability, for its inscription 
with fine irony proclaims the eterna memoria — the eternal 
remembrance — of a political constitution, which passed 
almost immediately away and left no impress on indi- 
viduals nor governments.* The Spanish market-and- 
pilot-house, with the pilot-boats drawn up on the 
shore — for there was no walled basin in those times 
— was long ago succeeded by another market, and 
that in turn by the structure now used for a music 
stand. Northeast of the plaza, where once stood the 
Spanish guard-house, with stocks and pillory, now rises a 



Charles IV. having been compelled to abdicate the Spanish throne in favor of 
Ferdinand VII., Napoleon Bonaparte was called upon to arbitrate between them. 
He extorted from both a resignation of their claims, and placed his own brother, 
Joseph Napoleon, on the throne (1808). An insurrection of the Spanish people 
followed. The French troops were employed to support Napoleon, and England, 
recognizing the claims of Ferdinand VII., aided the cause of the insurgents. In 
3812, the Spanish Cortes (the legislative body representing the insurgents) com- 
pleted the formation of a new and liberal constitution. In commemoration of this, 
jnonuments were erected in Spain and the Spanish provinces. Among others was 
ihis one in the province of Florida, the square then taking the name Plaza de la 
Constitucion. Finally, in 1814, the war for independence was brought to a suc- 
cessful termination; and Ferdinand VII., having pledged himself to support the 
new constitution, was recalled to the thrune. Once in power, almost his first act 
was to repudiate the new constitution and declare it null and void. Throughout 
Spain and her American dependencies it was commanded that the monuments 
erected two years previouslj' in commemoration of the constitution, should be 
destroyed. Notwithstanding the royal decree, this one in Florida was not torn 
down. The tablets were removed, but four years later (1818) were restored to 
iheir places, where they have remained ever since. 



122 Old St. Augustine. 

modern hotel. At the head of the same square, where 
the lattice gate led through the high wall to the convent 
beyond, a glass door now opens into a shop, where Yan- 
kee notions are on sale. Further down St. George 
street, the smart picket fence of a hotel yard has sup- 
planted the pilastered wall of that famous mansion, which 
the Spanish treasurer began to build on so magnificent a. 
scale that the Spanish occupation did not suffice to com- 
plete it.* Even the pillars of the city gate, which next 
to the fort are the chief memorials of Old St. Augus- 
tine, have barely escaped demolition at the hand of the 
vandal; for once upon a time, a contractor was assigned 
the work of building a stone causeway from the gate, ia 
the place of the old draw-bridge, which formerly crossed 
the ditch at that point; and being in need of coquina, this 
unworthy workman, laying violent hands upon what 
was nearest, began to tear away the gateway pillars.. 
Compelled to restore the plundered stone to its place, he 
botched the work, and in the clumsy restoration has left 
an enduring monument of his lazy shiftlessness. In the 
march of improvement, other venerable relics of the 
town's ancient defenses have fared less fortunately. One 
of the picturesque coquina batteries, with its quaint and 
foreign air, a monument which had bravely survived the 
assaults of armed foes, the changes of empire and the 
corroding tooth of time, and which should have been 
always zealously protected by an intelligent public senti- 
ment, was demolished at last, that, forsooth, the upper 



* This was on the corner of St. George street and the lane called Treasury- 
street— a corruption of the Spanish name, which signified "the stieet where the 
Treasurer lives." 



Later Years, 123 

windows of a boarding-house might command a more. 
extended view. 

Such is the spirit of the age. Down with the old Unes. 
Let them no longer cumber the earth. Time has leveled 
the ramparts, and filled the ditch with the blowing sands. 
It is a good work — this of time; and we will do our own 
share, too, by carting off the earth from the old redoubts 
and with it filling in building lots for new houses. Why 
not? The defenses fulfilled their mission long ago, in 
those days when the jealous Spaniard built them to repel 
intruders from his domain; but in these later years we 
have no wish to keep strangers out; whoever will, may 
come. So reasons new St. Augustine, carpenter's saw in 
one hand, paint pot in the other. You may hear it in the 
rumble of the railroad train from the North, whizzing in 
through the lines, where once the sentinel's sharp chal- 
lenge halted the stranger at the stockaded defenses; ia 
the shriek of the locomotive beyond the San Sebas- 
tian, where once the mellow notes of the bugle told the 
coming of the mail; and in the clatter of omnibus and 
hack over the bridge, where once the toiling rope-ferry 
crawled from shore to shore. You may listen to its tell- 
ing all day long in the discordant din of a steam saw- 
mill, on the site where once the sentinel's alerta passed 
along the line and angry artillery thundered; and you 
may hear it again at night, in the evening melodies of 
the great hotel, by whose ambitious turrets the frowning 
battlements of Fort Marion — once so impressive from 
the harbor — have been dwarfed and belittled. 

So the old has passed away; and by shortsighted van- 
dalism the ancient landmarks have been leveled with the 



124 Old St. Augtistiiie. 

ground; but with the destruction of these moss-grown 
monuments the town's three centuries have not been 
blotted out, nor is their story taken away; and as here 
and there the remnants of some venerable wall yet endure, 
so the romance of the Old St. Augustine of yesterday 
remains, to add its charm to those of the fountains and 
the gardens, the waving palms and the perfumed groves 
of the new St. Augustine of to-day. 



XVIII. 

FORT MARION. 

HEN the Spaniards came to the River of Dol- 
phins, in 1565, they converted the Indian coun- 
cil house of Seloy into a temporary defense. 
This was succeeded by a fort of logs, the Fort San Juan 
de Pinos taken by Drake; and this in turn gave way to 
the foundations of the substantial structure of stone 
which is still standing. After a century of toil by an 
army of troops, bands of Indian captives, slaves, con- 
victs and exiles, Fort San Marco was finally completed 
in 1756. So great was the expenditure involved, that the 
Spanish monarch — into whose coffers the rich streams 
from the Indies had long since ceased to flow — exclaimed, 
when told of its cost, that the curtains and bastions must 
have been built of solid silver dollars. 

The fortification is a regular polygon, of four equal 
curtains and four equal bastions. It is surrounded by a 
moat, and is defended on the east by a water battery, and 
on the other three sides by a glacis. The sally-port, on 
the south, is further protected by a barbacan or demilune. 
The sally-port was reached by a stationary bridge extend- 



126 



Old St. Augustine. 



ing partially across the moat, and then by a draw-bridge.* 
The material of which the fort is constructed is a soft 
shell concretion, called coquina. It was quarried on the 




* From the crest of the artificial hill of earth (the glacis) a bridge (i), formerly 
•draw-bridge, leads across moat to barbacan On the barbacan at the stairway (2) 
are the arms of Spain. A bridge (3), formerly a draw-bridge, leads to sally-port 
<4), where was a heavy door (portcullis). The escutcheon above bears arms of 
Spain ; the Spanish legend, now partially obliterated, set forth that "Don Fer- 
dinand the VI., being King of Spain, and the Field Marshal Don Alonzo Fernando 
Hereda, being Governor and Captain General of this place, San Augustin of 
Florida, and its province, this Fort was finished in the year 1756. The works were 
-directed by the Captain Engineer, Don Pedro de Brozas y Garay." Within, on 
right of entrance (5), are bake-room (6) and two dark chambers (7, 8) ; on left is the 



Fort Marion. 127 

island opposite the town; and being of a spongy, elastic 
composition, was well adapted to withstand a bombard- 
ment from such artillery as was used a hundred years ago. 

guard-room (7) and officers' room (7). Around the court are casemates (10) some 
formerly having upper rooms. The windows (embrasures) are high up near the 
arched ceilings. From first east casemate a door leads into dark chamber (9). 
From casemate 11 entrance is had to a dark chamber (12), thence by narrow 
passage through wall 5 feet thick into a space 5 feet wide ; and by a low aperture 
2 feet square through another wall 5 feet thick, into an innermost chamber (14), 
19^x13% feet and 8 feet high, with arched roof of solid masonry. This was 
perhaps a powder-magazine or bomb-proof. It is probable that : when the 
water percolated down, this chamber became damp and unwholesome, fell 
into disuse, became a receptacle for rubbish, bred fevers, and was finally, as 
a sanitary measure, walled up. The entrance from the chamber (12) was closed 
by the Spaniards shortly before Florida was ceded to the United States. [This is 
on authority of Mr. Cristobal Bravo, who then, a boj'^, was employed in the 
fort.] In the chapel (15) the altar and niches still remain. Outside, over entrance 
is a memorial tablet set in wall by the French astronomers who here observed 
the transit of Venus. 16 is a dark room. Casemate loa was used as the treasury. 
In IOC Coacoochee was confined. The court is 103x109 feet. Cannon were rolled 
up the inclined plane (now worn into resemblance of a stairway) to platform (terre- 
plein) of ramparts. At outer angle of each bastion (B) was a sentry-box (W), 
That on northeast was also a watch-tower (25 feet high). The one on northwest is 
fallen. Distance from watch-tower to watch-tower, 317 feet. The curtains (walls 
extending from bastion to bastion) and the bastion walls are 9 feet thick at base, 
4,y2 at top, and 25 feet high above present moat level. The moat, 40 feet wide, 
formerly deeper than now, with concrete floor, was kept scrupulously clean, and 
flooded at high tide from the river. The narrower level space beyond the moat is 
the covered way; and the wider levels are the places-of-arms. The troops, who 
gathered here to repel assault, were defended by the outer wall (parapet), from 
which the great embankment of earth (the glacis) slopes. The stone water- 
battery on the east was rebuilt in 1842. The hot shot furnace, in front of east 
curtain, was built in 1844. The last use of the cannon, mounted at the water- 
battery, was for quarantine. When a vessel arrived, a blank charge was fired as a 
signal for it to anchor, that the health officer of the port might go out to inspect it. 
The last historic shot from Fort Marion was from one of these guns. It was in 
1867. A little schooner, built in St. Augustine and launched from the sea-wall, had 
been named in honor of the commandant of the post. Colonel John T. Sprague. 
From the initial trip the schooner arrived off the bar one Sunday morning. The 
people on their way to church heard the quarantine gun ; and soon after the town 
was thrown into excitement by the screech of a cannon ball. It subsequently tran- 
spired that the captain, unmindful of quarantine regulations, had taken the first 
shot for a salute to his be-Coloneled schooner ; and with all his bunting flung 
to the breeze, he sailed grandly on. But of the shot across his bows there could 
be no mistaking the intent. The captain of the Colonel John T. Sprague 
promptly lowered sail and let go the anchor, but struck his colors never. 



128 Old St, Atcgustine. 

How conspicuous was the part taken by the fort in 
deciding the fortunes of Florida and of North America, 
has been already told; but still more romantic than the 
record of sieges and political mutations, would be the 
story of those who from time to time and on one pretext 
or another have been confined within its walls. Here 
and there, in the chronicles of the fitful years of conflict 
between Spanish Florida and the British colonies, we may 
catch glimpses of such prisoners — now an English mother- 
brought here by savage Yemassee ;* again, English 
seamen taken by Spanish galleys; and then, the High- 
landers surprised in Fort Moosa by nocturnal sortie. f 



* While the colony was thus harassed with fears and troubles and rigorous 
landlords to enhance their misery, their savage neighbors were also now and then 
making incursions into their settlements, and spreading havoc among the scattered 
families. At this time a scalping party penetrated as far as the Euhah lands, 
where, having surprised John Levit and two of his neighbors, they knocked out 
their brains with their tomahawks. They then seized Mrs. Barrows and one of 
her children and carried them oflf with them. The child by the way finding him- 
self in barbarous hands, began to cry, upon which they put him to death. The 
distressed mother being unable to refrain from tears, while her child was murdered 
before her eyes, was given to understand that she must not weep, if she desi.ed 
not to share the same fate. Upon her arrival at Augustine, she would have been 
immediately sent to prison, but one of the Yamassee kings declared that he knew 
her from her infancy to be a good woman, interceded for her liberty and begged 
she might be sent home to her husband. This favor, however, the Spanish Gov- 
ernor refused to grant ; and the garrison seemed to triumph with the Indians in 
the number of their scalps. When Mr. Barrows went to Augustine to procure the 
release of his wife, he also was shut up in prison along with her, where he soon 
after died, but she survived all the hardships of hunger, sickness, and confine- 
ment to give a relation of her barbarous treatment. After her return to Carolina 
she reported to Governor Johnson that the Huspah king who had taken her 
prisoner and carried her off informed her he had orders from the Spanish Gov- 
ernor to spare no white man, but to bring every negro alive to Augustine, and 
that rewards were given to Indians for th«;ir prisoners to encourage them to engage 
in such rapacious and murderous enterprises.— //^i«?V'j South Carolina. 

t During the siege by Oglethorpe, in a night attack by the Spaniards on Fort 
Moosa, twenty Highlanders were taken and brought into the fort, where they were 
kept in close confinement three months. 



Foi^t Marion. 



129 



In Revolutionary times the fort was used for the impris- 
onment of Patriots from Charleston,* of crews of ships 
taken by privateers from St. Augustine, and of Georgians 
who had fallen into the hands of McGirth's men. In 
subsequent years, when the Spaniards had come again, 
McGirth himself heard the clank of the prison bars 
behind him, and through five slow years of darkness 
lingered in the cell known long afterward as "McGirth's 
dungeon. "f Then came, victim of Spanish rancor, Gen- 
eral Mcintosh, for whose release a sightless wife made 
unavailing plea, in letters of such pathetic eloquence that, 
though they did not melt the obdurate heart of the Span- 



* At one of the Sabbath services held by the paroled Patriots in St. Augustine, 
the minister, Rev. John Lewis, preached a discourse which so enraged Governor 
Tonyn that he shut up the Charleston clerg^^man in the fort. After that, if the 
Patriots wished to attend service, they were compelled to go to the Parish Church 
and hear prayers offered for George the Fourth. {Garden s A necdotes 0/ A tnerican 
Revolution). They were permitted to write home, upon condition that they 
should communicate nothing about the state of affairs in St. Augustine. One of 
them, detected in a violation of this rule, was arrested and confined in the fort. 
In one of the long, dreary hours of solitary confinement, he wrote on his prison 
walls the following reflection on the vain glories of the world — 
" Life is a vapour, man needs repose. 
He glories but a moment, down he goes." 
A British officer, to show his wit, wrote under it — 

" is a bubble, as his scribbling shows. 

He cuts a caper, and then up he goes ," 
with a finger pointing at a man suspended on a gallows. {Johnson's Reminiscences 
0/ the American Revolution.) General Christopher Gadsden was confined in a 
dark dungeon, and for a long time was denied a light, i inally he was permitted to 
have a candle ; and then, to while away the time, engaged in the study of 
Hebrew. How he was threatened with death has been told in a previous chapter. 

t When Florida was reconveyed to the Spaniards by the treaty of peace, he 
[McGirth] became subject to their laws, and on account of suspicious conduct was 
arrested and confined by them five years in one of their damp dungeons in 
the Castle of St. Augustine, where his health was totally destroyed. When dis- 
charged from St. Augustine, he, with much difficulty, returned to his wife in 
Sumter District, S. C, where he ended his Wi^.— Johnson' s Reminiscences o/the 
American Revolution. 
9 



130 ' Old St, Augustine. 

ish Governor, one may not to-day read them unmoved.* 
Finally, the fort, which in its first rude form had barely 
sufficed for a defense against the Indian, and which in 
its prime had served for the incarceration of the refrac- 
tory savage leaders, became in its decay a prison-house 
for the betrayed chiefs of that waning race. To-day, 
they show you the casemate called "Coacoochee's cell," 
and point to the narrow embrasure high in the wall 
through which the Seminole made his way to liberty, f 
Then, to the tale of the Indian warrior's captivity and 
escape, will be added the story how, forty years after- 
wards, the court and casemates and ramparts of the fort 



* Ten years after the close of the Revolution General John Mcintosh settled on 
the St. John's, and was making improvements on the south bank of that beautiful 
river, when, on going to St. Augustine, as usual, he was roused from his bed, at 
midnight, by a band of Spanish troops, accompanied by the Governor in disguise, 
Juan Nepomuceno de Quesada, with whom he had been on friendly terms, and by 
him was imprisoned in the fortress of St. Augustine. * * * * While he remained 
in prison all intercourse with his distressed family and friends was interdicted, and 
by the first opportunity he was shipped under a strong guard, as a prisoner of 
State, to the Captain-General of Cuba, and by him incarcerated in the Moro 
Castle of Havana. After nearly a year's imprisonment he was released, no 
charge having been presented against Mvxa..— White s Historical Collections. 

+ Following is Coacoochee's account of his escape with his companion, Talmus 
Hadjo : -" We had been growing sickly from day to day, and so resolved to make 
our escape, or die in the attempt. We were in a room, eighteen or twenty feet 
square. All the light adniitted was through a hole [embrasure], about eighteen 
feet from the floor. Through this we must effect our escape, or remain and die 
Avith sickness. A sentinel was constantly posted at the door. As we looked at it 
from our beds, we thought it small, but believed that, could we get our heads 
through, we should have no further nor serious difficulty. To reach the hole was 
the first object. In order to effect this, we from time to time cut up the forage- 
bags allowed us to sleep on, and made them into ropes. The hole I could not 
reach when upon the shoulder of my companion; but while standing upon his 
shoulder, I worked a knife into a crevice of the stone work, as far up as I could 
reach, and upon this I raised myself to the aperture, when I found that, with some 
reduction of person, I could get through. In order to reduce ourselves as much 
zs. possible, we took medicine five days. Under the pretext of being very sick, we 
were permitted to obtain the roots we required. For some weeks we watched the 



Fort Marion. 131 

bustled with the throngs of the Comanches, Kiowas and 
Cheyennes, gathered here from the West to learn in St. 
Augustine the arts of civilization and the ways of peace. 



moon, in order that the night of our attempt it should be as dark as possible. At 
the proper time we commenced the medicine, calculatir.g upon the entifc disap- 
pearance of the moon. The keeper of this prison, on the night determined upon 
to make the effort, annoyed us by frequently coming into the room, and talking 
and singing. At first we thought of tying him and putting his head in a bag ; so 
that, should he call for assistance, he could not be heard. We first, however, tried 
the experiment of pretending to be asleep, and when he returned to pay no regard 
to him. This accomplished our object. He came in, and went immediately out; 
and we could hear him snore in the immediate vicinity of the door. I then took 
the rope, which we had secreted under our bed, and mounting upon the shoulder 
of my comrade, raised myself upon the knife worked into the crevices of the 
stone, and succeeded in reaching the embrasure. Here I made fast the rope, that 
my friend might follow me. I then passed through the hole a sufficient length of 
it to reach the ground upon the outside (about 25 feet) in the ditch. I had cal- 
culated the distance when going for roots. With much difficulty I succeeded in 
j;etting my head through; for the sharp stones took the skin off my breast and 
back. Putting my head through first, I was obliged to go down head-foremost, 
until my feet were through, fearing every moment the rope would break. At last, 
safely on the ground, I awaited with anxiety the arrival of my comrade. I had 
passed another rope through the hole, which, in the event of discovery, Talmus 
Hadjo was to pull, as a signal to me upon the outside, that he was discovered, and 
-could not come. As soon as I struck the ground I took hold of the signal, for intell- 
igence from my friend. The night was verj' dark. Two men passed near me, 
talking earnestly, and I could see them distinctly. Soon I heard the struggle of 
my companion far above me. He had succeeded in getting his head through, but 
"his body would come no farther. In the lowest tone of voice, I urged him to 
throw cut his breath, and then try ; soon after, he came tumbling down the whole 
distance. For a few moments I thought him dead. I dragged him to some water 
close by, which restored him ; but his leg was so lame he was unable to walk. I 
took him upon my shoulder to a scrub, near the town. Daylight was just break- 
ing ; it was evident we must move rapidly. I caught a mule in the adjoining 
field, and making a bridle out of my sash, mounted my companion, and started for 
the St. John's River. The mule we used one day, but fearing the whites would 
track us, we felt more secure on foot in the hammock, though moving very slow. 
Thus we continued our journey five days, subsisting upon roots and berries, when 
I joined my band, then assembled on the headwaters of the Tomoka River, near 
the Atlantic coast. I gave my warriors the history of my capture and escape, 
and assured them that they should be satisfied that my capture was no trick of my 
own, and that I would not deceive them. When I came in to St. Augustine, to 
see my father, I took the word of friends ; they said I should return, but they 
cheated me. When I was taken prisoner, my band was inclined to leave the 
country, but upon my return they said, let us all die in Florida." — Coacoockeis 
Narration^ in Spraguis Florida War. 



132 Old St. Augustine, 

The fort, called by the Spaniards San Juan de Pinos, 
San Augustin, and San Marco, and by the English St. 
Mark's, having come into the possession of the United 
States, was named (in 1825) Fort Marion, after General 
Francis Marion, of Revolutionary fame. Writing from 
St. Augustine, in 1842, William Cullen Bryant criticised 
this as "a foolish change of name." But why foolish ? 
If Moultrie is thus honored, and Sumter the "Game 
Cock," why not Marion the "Swamp Fox ?" Is it not 
the veriest romance of history that the Spanish fortress 
planted here by Menendez, the hunter of French Hugue- 
nots, should at last yield up its saintly name, for that of 
a hero in whose veins flowed the blood of other Huguenot 
exiles? And is it not the final justice of time that the 
British stronghold, within whose dungeons rebellious 
Patriots were immured, should receive, from the nation 
which those prisoners helped to establish, the honored 
name of one, who endured with them the perils and 
privations of its cause, and won with them the final 
glorious triumph ? 

Some years after the fort came into the possession of 
the United States, a portion of the northeast terreplein 
fell in, and disclosed a series of walled up chambers. 
Tradition has it that in these chambers certain remains 
were found, which w^ere supposed, by the more imagina- 
tive, to be relics of cruel imprisonment and of the reign 
of the Spanish Inquisition. This tale of the bones in the 
dungeon was formerly received with the eager credence 
that the early explorers gave to the rumors of gold mines 
in Florida; but in later years, although the makers of 
sensational guide books cling tenaciously to the dungeon 



Fort Marion, 133 

relics, skeptics have arisen, who deny the truth of the 
story. They probably are right. It is of no moment. 
The fault lies net in the story of St. Augustine's three 
centuries, but in its telling, if the chapters of this 
book have not shown that the romance investing Fort 
Marion does not center about the alleged discovery of 
human bones in its walled-up chambers, and needs not 
to be groped for with a torch in subterranean passages. 
The incident even if true might well be spared. Who 
thinks otherwise, has strangely misread the history of 
the changing fortunes which transformed the Indian 
council house into the fort of logs, and have converted 
Spain's proudly equipped fortress into this massive pile 
of crumbling masonry. 

Recall the days when San Juan de Pinos was the de- 
fense of the half -starved Spanish garrison; and when of 
those huddled within its stockades, one and other braver 
than the rest, ventured out beyond the lines for fish or 
game, and falling before the blow of the lurking savage, 
came never again. Remember those long years of misery, 
when Indian slave, English prisoner and Spanish convict 
labored beneath the lash of the driver, and with burden- 
some toil and suffering unspeakable builded their very 
lives into these coquina bastions. Replace the heavy iron 
gratings of casemate and cell; send home the clanging 
bolt and bar; listen to the piteous pleading of husband 
for imprisoned wife and of wife for imprisoned husband, 
and hear the shutting to of doors upon manacled wretches, 
who from the gloom of that inner darkness shall never 
emerge to look upon the sun. Light again in the dim 
chapel the ever-burning lamp before the tabernacle; restore 



134 ^^^ ^i' Augustine. 

to the niches their images, its cloth to the altar, the water 
to the font; and bring back the pageantry of cere- 
monial rites, chant of mass and murmur of confessional. 
Remember those momentous days, when Castle San 
Marco — standing here for the very maintenance of Spain 
in North America — bore the brunt of well concerted 
assault. Build anew the shattered defenses; flood the 
moat; raise the draw-bridge let fall the portcullis; mount 
the guard; fling bravely out from the rampart the banner 
of Castile; and let the artillery belch angry defiance 
of the hosts under the Red Cross. Hear the sharp wcrd 
of command, the tread of battalions, the rattle of volley" 
and the screech of cannon ball. Look out, with the 
famishing women and children, over the bay and beyond 
the camps of the besiegers on Anastatia, and scan the 
sea in vain for the coming of a friendly fleet; after the 
weeks of famine, hear at last, in the night, the shouts of 
rescuers; and then, the lessening drum beat of the de- 
parting British. Or, since you are an American, recall 
again those later years, when the soldiers of George the 
Fourth guarded Fort St. Marks and imprisoned Patriots 
languished in its cells; and keeping weary vigil with 
the white-haired Gadsden, let your patriotism kindle and 
in the damp-walled dungeon take on a brighter glow. 
So review all the stirring chronicle — 

Of sallies and retires, of trenches, tents, 

Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets; 

Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin. 

Of prisoners ransom'd, and of soldiers slain, 

And all the 'currents of a heady fight — 

and then iray be known some.hing of that s:ory — which. 



Fort Marion, 135 

in truth is worthy to be known — of Fort Marion in St. 
Augustine. 

A record more eloquent still have these gray walls for 
him who will listen to the telling — the wonderful story of 
the changes that have taken place since the fort was 
established here on the coast of North America, for 
Spain's menace to the world. Its age must be reckoned 
not by decades but by revolutions; not by centuries but 
by changes on the map of the world, the going out of 
ancient empires, and the blazing forth of new. It is a long 
span from 1565 to 1885, but a longer one still from the 
Sixteenth century to the Nineteenth — from the Massacre 
of Jean Ribault to the tercentenary of Martin Luther — 
from Spain, whose knights led the way in the con- 
quest of a world, to Spain fallen behind in the onward 
march of the nations — from the wilderness of unexplored 
Terra Florida to the populous North America of to-day. 
The Spanish fortress has seen one band of intruders after 
another set foot upon the shores of the continent it was 
appointed to defend; and powerless to withstand their 
swelling hosts, it has seen these colonies gather strength, 
unite for revolution, achieve independence, expand into 
a nation of thirty-eight stites, and fifty millions strong 
stretch out over mountain and prairie, across the conti- 
nent, to the very shore of the Great Unknown Sea. The 
band of twenty African slaves brought to Seloy it has 
seen grow to 4,000,000 of bondsmen; it has seen, for their 
emancipation, a nation p'unged into civil war; and has 
looked on — as a world looked on — to see that nation from 
the strife come forth again unbroken, with its bands of 
union welded in the furnace more firmly together. 



136 Old St. Augustine. 

Amid its garish surroundings the old fort stands to-day. 
Its outlines are softened by the elements; its moat is 
choked with the drifting sands; its turrets are crumb- 
ling; its walls seamed with the ravages of decay. The 
fig tree springs out from the rents in its curtains; tiny 
flowers peep up from the rampart; and summer grasses 
C-Othe the escarpment with their luxuriant growth — Time's 
banner of peace on the outer wall. Draw-bridge and 
portcullis long ago disappeared from the sally-port; the 
legend on the escutcheon we may no longer read; nor 
ascend the inclined plane to the ramparts. Gratings 
have given place to window panes; ponderous doors 
have been demoHshed; sunlight has been let into the 
dungeons. Stalactites depend from the casemate ceilings; 
parti-colored moss and mould bedeck the damp w lis; 
owls nest in the crannies. 

Crossing the wooden bridge which spans the moat and 
stretches over the centuries, you may leave behind the St. 
Augustine of to-day, and in court, casemate and dungeon, 
summon once more the shadowy forms of mailed warrior, 
manacled captive and dark-robed priest. As, lost in 
revery, you muse on the ramparts, the pleasure fleet 
vanishes from the bay and a phantom sail looms up in 
the offing; and as you look, the strains of the distant 
band on the plaza die away amid Spanish cries of alarm; 
and you catch the melody, now faint and indistinct, then 
shrill and clear, cf the Frenchman in his little boat, 
"playing on his Phyph the tune of he Prince of Orange 
his song." 



IN BRIEF. 

1512. Spanish Expedition, Ponce de Leon. 

1528. Disastrous Spanish Expedition, Pamphilo de Narvaez. 

1539. Disastrous Spanish Expedition, Ferdinand de Soto. 

1562. French Protestants, under Ribault, come to Florida. From 

River of May sail north. Establish Charles-Fort at Port 
Royal Inlet. 

1563. Charles-Fort abandoned. 

1564. Second company of French Protestants, under Laudonniere,. 

come to Seloy. Establish Fort Caroline on the River of May. 

1565. Ribault arrives with reinforcements for Fort Caroline. Men- 

endez founds San Augustin. Fort Caroline taken. The 

shipwrecked Frenchmen massacred. 
1568. De Gourgues destroys the Spanish forts. 
1586. Drake sacks San Augustin. 
1597. Massacre of Franciscans. 
1665. Davis sacks San Augustin. 
1702. Siege by Moore, of Carolina. 
1740. Siege by Oglethorpe, of Georgia. 
1742. Expedition against Georgia. 
1763. Florida ceded to Great Britain. 
1769. Minorcans arrive at New Smyrna. 
1775. Minorcans come to St. Augustine. 
1783. Florida retroceded to Spain. 
1 821. Florida ceded to United States. 
1835. Seminole War begun. 
1842. Seminole War ended. 
1845. Florida admitted to the Union. 

St. Augustine is the oldest town on the continent, north of Mexico, 
The date of its establishment (1565) was 17 years earlier than the 
Spaniards settled Santa Fe in New Mexico (15S2). 20 years earlier 
than Raleigh's unsuccessful settlement at Roanoke Island (1585). 40 
years earlier than the French in Nova Scotia (1605), 42 earlier than 
the London Company at Jamestown (1607), 43 years earlier than 
Champlain at Quebec (1608), 49 years earlier than the Dutch at 
New Amsterdam (1614), and 55 years earlier than the Puritans at 
Plymouth Rock (1620). 



INDEX. 

Adam?, Samuel, burned in effigy, 91. 
Amusements in Spanish times, 105. 
Andre, 96. 
Apalatcy, 22. 

Balearic Islands, 84. 

Barracks, 119. 

Bartram, William, 63. 

Betsey, the brig. 91-92. 

Black drink, 16, 44. 

Boucaniers, 69; the name, 70; attack on San Augustin, 74. 

Browne, Colonel Thomas, 89, 92, 94. 

Bunker Hill, powder from St. Augustine used in battle of, 91. 

Burgoigne, Nicolas, 41, 58. 

Barrows, Mrs.. 128. 

Carnival celebration, 105. 

Carolina settled, 76. 

Cathedral, 120. 

Chain gangs, 75, 103. 

Challeux, 31, 32-33. 

Charivari, 105. 

Cherokees enlist against the British, 78; against the Colonies, 91. 

Chigoula, 22. 

City.gate, 103, 119, 122. 

Civil war, 118. 

Coacoochee, takes up arms against the whites, no; meaning of 
name, no; confined in Fort Marion and escapes„ii4; talk with 
General Worth, 115; imprisoned, 116; his tribe to surrender, 116; 
transported from Florida, 117; narrative of escape. 130. 

Colonel John T. Sprague, the schooner, 127. 

Convent lattice gate, 122. 

Coquina, 126. 

Cortez, 22. 



140 Index. 



Council house of Seloy, 16; used by Spaniards for fortification, 25. 
Creeks enlist against the British, 78; against the Colonies, 9I. 
Cutter, 85-86. 
Cuzco, 22. 

Dade's command massacred, iio-iii. 

Davis takes Granada, 73; and San Augustin, 74. 

Declaration of Independence, 91. 

De Gourgues, organizes expedition against the Spaniards in Florida, 
43; takes the small forts and Fort San Mateo, 45-46; hangs 
the Spaniards. 47; returns to France, 48; death, 50. 

De Veaux, expedition against Nassau, 97-98. 

Drake, takes San Domingo and Cartagena, 54; sacks San Augustin, 
56-60; takes part in fight against Armada, 61. 

Dramming out, 104. 

Dungeon relics, 127, 132 

Easter Eve, 106. 
Elizabeth Bonaventura , 56, 61. 
Emathla, captured 114. 
English colonists, 76-82. 
English seamen, 51. 

Farragut, Admiral, 90. 

Farragul, George, 90. 

Fish, his grove on St Anastatia Island, 9O. 

Fleur-de-Lis, 14. 107. 

Florida, early Spanish expeditions in, ii; Menendez receives a com- 
mission to subdue, 12; invaded by heretics, 13; French expedition 
to, 14; the name embraced all of North America. 21; supposed 
wealth of, 22; Menendez takes possession of^ 26; proves an un- 
profitable possession, 49; Franciscans in, 62-68; condition of pro- 
vince in Eighteenth century, 75; invasions by British, 77, 79; 
ceded to England, 82; remains loyal at outbreak of the Revolu- 
tion, 91; prosperous condition of at close of Revolutionary war, 
98-99; retroceded to Spain, 99; invaded by Americans, 106; 
ceded to the United States, 107; Indians removed from, 109-117. 

Florida Rangers, 89, 94, 95. 

Fort Caroline, building of, 17; name, i3; taken by Menendez, 30-33; 
name changed, 33; (as San Mateo; taken by De Gourgues, 46. 



Index, 141 

Fort Marion, 125-136; completed in 1756, 125; plan of, 126; legend 
on escutcheon, 126; prisoners in, 128-129; alleged dungeon relics, 
133; romance of its history, 133. 

Fort Picola, 79. 

Fort Poppa, 79. 

Fort San Juan de Pinos, 60, 124. 

Fort San Marco, 75, 79-80, 125. 

Fort San Mateo, named, 33; taken by De Gourgues, 46; destroyed, 
47; (rf '^'lilt and) taken by Oglethorpe, 79. 

Fosse, north of the town, 103. 

Fountain of Youth, 23. 

Fourth of July dinner, 97. 

Franciscans, missions, 62; massacre, 63-67; abandon Florida, 67. 

French under Laudonniere arrive at Seloy, 14; establish Fort Caro- 
line, 17; reinforcements under Ribault, 19; sail under Ribault 
against Spaniards, 29; those in Fort Caroline routed or killed, 
32: those under Ribault shipwrecked and massacred, 36-41; third 
expedition under De Gourgues takes the Spanish forts, 43-48. 

Frobisher, 53, 61. 

Funerals, 105. 

Gadsden, Christopher, 96. 

Georgia settled, 78; wars with, see Oglethorpe. 

Gibbet, 104. 

Glacis, 126. 

Governor's-house, 120. 

Governor, the Spanish, 104. 

Guard-house, 104. 

Hancock, John, burned in effigy, 9I. 
Hawkins, John, relieves the French. 18. 
Highlanders confined in fort, 128. 
Hispaniola, 69. 

" Huguenot burying-ground," 120. 
Huguenots, see French. 

Junipero, Father, 84. 

King's Road, 89, 99. 

Zjx Barbarita, 102. 
La Matanza, 49. 



142 Index, 

X-audonniere, in command of French expedition, 14; left in Fort 

Caroline, 31; escapes and makes his way to France, 32. 
Lee, General Charles, expedition against St. Augustine, 95. 
Le Moyne, 17, 31, 32-33- 
Liberty Boys, 90-100, 
Light-house, Spanish, 120. 
Lutherans, see French. 

McGirth, 92-93, 94. 

Mcintosh, Rory, 94. 

Mcintosh, John, 129. 

Market-and-pilot-house, Spanish, I2i. 

Market, 120. 

Massacre of Madrid, 105. 

Matanzas inlet, the name, 49. 

Menendez, receives his commission, 12; voyage, 20-21; arrives at 
River of May, 23; comes to River of Dolphins, 24; founds 
San Augustin, 25-28; takes Fort Caroline, 30-33; massacres 
the shipwrecked French, 34-42; death, 50. 

Mendoza, the chaplain, 20, 21, 26, 29, 30, 33. 

Minorca, 83-84. 

Minorcan colony at New Smyrna, 84; attempted flight, 85-86; revolt 
and removal to St. Augustine, 87-89; enlist with British forces, 
89; remain after cession of Florida to England, 102; and after 
cession of Florida to United States, Il8. 

Montiano, defends San Marco, 80; expedition against Georgia, 81. 

Monument, Spanish, 121. 

Moore, expedition of, 77- 

Moral, 78. 

Nassau taken, 97-98. 

Nea-Mathla, killed by Osceola, no. 

Negroes, first brought to North America, 21, 25, 26; fugitives from 
Carolina given liberty at San Augustin, 76; formed into a regi- 
ment, 78; Fort Moosa garrisoned by them, 79; shipload of 
brought to St. Augustine, 94; join the expedition against Nassau, 
98; rules governing in second Spanish supremacy, 104; fugitives 
among the Seminoles, 109, T13; abolition of slavery, 135. 

I^ew Smyrna, 84-90. 

Nunez de Balboa, 22. 



Index, 143 

Oglethorpe, expedition of, 79-81; repulses Montiano. 82. 

Okeechobee, mission bell, 63; Indian retreats, iii. 

Osceola, his influence, refuses to sign treaty, and takes up arms, lio; 

name, no; confinement in Fort Marion, 114; death, 115 
Palm Sunday, 106. 
Patriots in St. Augustine, 95-97- 
Pel.icier, 88. 
PiPar of stone, 17. 
Pillory, 104. 
Pizarro, 22. 
Plaza, 102, 120-121. 
Powder-house, 102, 120. 

Raleigh's colony in Virginia, 60. 

Rangers, 89, 94, 95. 

Redoubts, 103. 

Revolution, the American, 91-98. 

Ribault, first voyage, 15, 17; arrives at River of May, 18; comes to 

attack San Augustin. 29; shipwrecked, 36; arrives at inlet, 39; 

surrenders, 40; death, 41. 
River of Dolphins, named by Laudonniere, 15; Spaniards come to, 24; 

name changed to San Augustin, 34. 
River of May, named, 16; name changed to San Mateo, 33. 
Romans, Bernard, 86. 

Saint Anastatia Islands, (alluded to not by name, 34, 49, 56, 74), 
75, 80, 96, 98, loi, 119. 120, 127. 

Saint Augustine. San Augustin founded by Menendez on site of 
Seloy, 25-28; the name, 27; a military post, 49; sacked by Drake, 
56-60; taken by the Boucaniers, 74; refuge for runaways from 
Carolina, 76; besieged by Moore, 77; besieged by Oglethorpe, 
79-81; passes into possession of England, and name changed to 
Saint Augustine, 82; Minorcans come to, 89; refuge for Tories, 
91; center of military operations against Colonies, 95; threatened 
by Colonial troops, 95; Patriots in, 95-97; sends expedition 
against Nassau, 97; evacuated .by the British, 99-100; condition 
under second Spanish rule, 102-106; threatened by American 
invaders, ro6; comes into possessioaof the United States, 107; 
.alarm of citizens at outbreak of Seminole war, 108; change since 
ihe civil Avar, II9-124. 



1 44 Index, 

St. Bartholomew's Day, 87. 

St. Simon's Island, 81. 

San Diego, 79. 

San Falayo, 21, 23-24, 27; sails for Spain, 29, 

Satourioua, 16, 17. 44-46, 50. 

Scopholites, 94. 

Sea-Kings, hatred of Spaniards, 51-52; attack on San Augustin, s6» 

Sea-wall, 119, 120. 

Seloy, 14; description of, 16; site of San Augustin, 25. 

Seminoles, Spanish treatment of, 102, 109; conflicts with Americaa 
settlers, 109; beginning of the war with, 109; meaning of name, 
no; methods of warfare, III; their hopeless struggle, 113; sur- 
render and removal, 116-117. 

"Slave-pen," the so-called, 120. 

Slavery introduced into North America, 25. 

Soils, his account of Ribault's death, 41. 

Spain, lays claim to North America, ii; fails to conquer Florida, 11- 
12; power of in Sixteenth century, 26, 52; jealousy of other 
nations, 49; treatment of intruders, 51; strengthens the fortifica- 
tions in Florida, 76; cedes Florida to England, 82; acquires pos- 
session again, 102; cedes Florida to the United States, 107. 

Spanish Armada, 52, 61. 

Stag of Seloy, 16, 25, 26. 

Stocks, 104. 

Sullivan's Island, the name, 76. 

Sun-dial, 102. 

Tar and feathers, 92. 

Terra Florida, see Florida. 

Tolomato, massacre of Franciscans at, 63, 

Tories, fly to St. Augustine, 92. 

Tonyn, Governor, 94. 

Toreyn, 94. 

Treasure chest in the fort, 102. 

Treasurer's house, Spanish, 122. 

Treasury str<^et, the name, 122. « 

Trinity 23-24; appears off San Augustin, 29. 

Turnbull, 84, 87. 96. 



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